Chapter 427 – The Dragon and Phoenix Among Men

Everything went surprisingly well.

The first to start making moves was the Qixia Merchant Bank.

In addition to Taipingfu starting to build warehouses at various locations, as well as ferries and wharves to cope with the large amount of overseas goods in the future, adding some railroad spurs.

That is, a large number of ships were ordered.

For this purpose, a large number of dockyards also needed to be built, and shipwrights and laborers were greatly recruited for the shipbuilding dockyards.

At this time, the craze of going to the West has passed, but a large number of shipbuilding craftsmen are still there, and now the large-scale recruitment, so that these people who are originally craftsmen, attracted by the salary of the Taiping government, and thus, a large number of shipbuilding craftsmen from Fujian, Jiangsu and Zhejiang began to influx.

As for the dockyards, how to quickly manufacture sea vessels that can be launched into the sea, they can earn a lot of money, therefore, in order to speed up the manufacturing process, each dockyard also racked their brains.

It’s not the same as building the ships that went down to the West in the first place.

The ships going down to the Western Ocean were built under the imperial court’s decree and the government’s supervision.

And this dockyard manufacturing, because the order is extremely large, in order to speed up the delivery, in the manpower management as well as manufacturing process, then there is room for optimization.

But whenever any dock optimizes a process and improves it, other docks will not hesitate to start copying it immediately, and based on this, more docks will think hard and continue to optimize.

Shipbuilding is a big business, involving both wood and the treatment of wood, as well as the trades of boat paint, metal construction, canvas, cables, and so on.

Because of this, workshops, too, began to spring up in the counties.

Qixia merchant bank this side ordered a lot of merchant ships, has begun to have merchant banks began to follow up, although other merchant banks may not dare to be sure that the sea trade can earn a large sum of silver, but at least know that Qixia merchant bank is not to do business at a loss.

Immediately after that, other small businessmen also started to follow suit.

It was just that the price of a sea ship was high, and if you also had to purchase goods and recruit a large number of sailors as well as crew to go out to sea, it would cost a lot.

This is no longer affordable for small traders.

But looking at such a good deal, if you are indifferent, it is really greedy.

And at this point, some needle threaders began to appear on the market.

These people roam up and down the Qixia, lending their own credibility, began to organize people to enter into a contract for the purchase of a ship in partnership, they often have enough credibility, at the same time, but also proficient in law and order, of course …… they are often also clever tongue.

And Ma Yu, is one of them.

He was a lifer from Shandong.

In Daming, probably in the place of Taipingfu, the status of readers has been greatly reduced, and people may not be able to look highly at the general Xiu Cai.

But lifts obviously different, lifts in the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, is to go directly to the Ministry of mandarins to select officials, and do the official, the minimum can also be released to do a county in the county minister or the main book.

To put it bluntly, they are people with official status.

Not only that, Ma Yu in Shandong’s township examination, won the first prize.

The reason why he did not choose to go to be an official was that he still wanted to take the examination of the Society and win a bachelor’s degree.

This Shandong Buzhengji Division of the solution to the yuan, basically the same as a foot into the ranks of the jinshi, the future and even better luck, can be in the jinshi in the top, directly become a concubine jishi, may not be out of the question.

It can be said that such a person definitely belongs to the stars of tomorrow.

In this way, this gives Ma Yu a lot of maneuverable space, he first contacted the Shandong Chamber of Commerce where Qixia is located, here are mostly Shandong merchants, they do business in the capital, or landed in Shandong.

Both are the same hometown, that’s good to talk, the Ma family in Shandong ground, is a family of books, contacts or have, many merchants and businessmen see him willing to approach, begged.

To know, a lot of merchants in Qixia do business, but a large number of goods, but need to be sent to Shandong peddling, to know the horse Yu such a friend, if it is in Shandong side of the official difficulties, you may spend thousands of tens of thousands of taels of silver may not be able to solve the problem, but the horse Yu repair a letter, you can solve this pile of trouble.

To put it bluntly, the circles you hang out in are different, and what you think is a headache is just a handful for others.

Ma Yu then, began in a number of big merchants help, looking for the money bank borrowing, there are fellow merchants, but also willing to guarantee for him, directly borrowed 30,000 taels of silver.

Thereafter this Ma Yu will be comfortable, he does not bring these silver, collectively to order a ship, but will be decentralized, directly under the order of ten, the lack of silver, then to other merchants to collect.

In his opinion, one ship was of little use; on the one hand, the price of ordering one was not the same as ordering ten, for ordering more often the dockyards were willing to grant some concessions; after all, it was a large order.

On the other hand, the name of a ship and the name of ten ships to do business is not the same, the name of only one ship, may be transported only some of the bulk cargo, and if there are ten, then there is a direct and some of the big merchants and the capital of cooperation, for the big merchants, they ask for a steady stream of stable sources of goods, the other side of the ship, the supply of the risk is also small, would rather pay some more ship capital, but also willing to accept.

Then there is the acquisition of insurance for ten ships, which is slightly discounted.

In this way, a plus and a minus can be used to pocket all the profits.

These are all Ma Yu’s insights from his observations in Qixia these days.

In his opinion, this kind of thing is the same reason as reading a book, observe the situation of the ship industry, just like reading a book, you as long as you seize the key point, sort out the main relationship out, then there is no worry about not making a good article.

On the contrary, such as that, hot brain, only hate to read all the books can be familiar with, only know the rote memorization of the people, often test a show enough, and then on the contrary, it is difficult.

When Ma Yu was raising funds, he also deliberately avoided those big merchants, because the big merchants had more capital and were willing to give more silver, in this way, they became the big shareholders of these ships, and were able to influence the use of the ships.

And if you are just looking for those small merchants, you one hundred two he two hundred two, trouble is trouble some, but they accounted for the share is fragmented, so that the investment of three thousand two a ship of Ma Yu, but became the largest shareholder.

Both the major shareholders, but also the identity of the cited, even when faced with the big business firms to negotiate the issue of transportation of goods, but also do not underestimate, and even directly and the government equal negotiation, even in the various clans to negotiate, these clans of the governor of the House of History, he can easily deal with, do not have to bend over backwards.

As a result, although these ten ships are financing, but in fact, these ten ships, almost can Ma Yu one person in charge, the rest of the small businessmen, at most, can only participate in the dividends only.

Ma Yu want, is to be able to master the ten ships, now although there are many people ordering ships, but after all, no one has officially started to taste the sweetness, so although the dockyard although more, the order is also quite a lot, but has not formed a wind tide.

And once someone gets rich through shipping, at that point, the price of the ship, and the price of transportation, will only skyrocket.

Even after Ma Yu ordered ten ships, he was ready to discuss with other small merchants as soon as the ships were launched, using the ten ships as collateral to continue borrowing from the money changers, and then expanding the scale.

He was from a scholarly family and knew very well that this thing was one and the same as the local squire.

You having 10,000 acres is not the same as you having 100 acres.

With 10,000 acres, the more savings you have each year, the more you can continue to annex land, and each disaster year, the more resistant you are to disasters, and when a disaster passes, there are starving corpses everywhere, and you have a surplus of food, so that you can make a huge profit.

And if you only have a hundred acres of land, in addition to the family to eat and drink, the surplus is too small, whether it is the ability to resist risk, or the speed of saving the surplus to purchase new land, are ridiculously low, may be less than a few decades, you will have to fall into the family’s way, and from now on down to the tenant.

Ship is also the same reason, the more ships under the name, even if the debt is not related, but your ability to resist risk greatly strengthened, the annual profits are abundant, not only enough to cover the annual arrears, the remaining profits, but also enough to allow you to continue to chicken eggs, eggs and chickens.

A full month had passed, and this Ma Yu began to become a deep dweller in the eyes of his peers and fellow students.

Every morning, he went out from the inn early in the morning, and also became silent and did not return until midnight.

After that, Soksei Ma Yu was relocated to Qixia.

Some of the readers who had befriended him gradually lost track of his whereabouts.

Ma Yu was different from the others, his family was in the middle of the road, although the middle of the road of a bookish family was different from the middle of the road of an ordinary citizen’s family.

The only thing is that the former servants were like clouds, the family had ten thousand talents and thousands of hectares of good land, but now there were only a few servants in the family, and life began to become a little bit straitened.

It’s just that the fall in life has instead made Ma Yu a little more interested in running her own family business.

What’s more, he was originally from Shandong, Shandong people in the Yuan Dynasty, there were a large number of sea experience, he more or less, also heard a lot, this is also quite experienced.

Naturally, the most important thing is that this is, in his opinion, simply a pie falling from the sky, as if there is a golden treasure on the ground, and if one refuses to stoop down and pick it up, then it would really be a sin.

But Ma Yu’s servant, Ma San, was in a hurry at this time.

Ma San’s face was filled with worry as he said, “Young master, the examination is approaching, if you don’t study your homework at this time, it would be bad if you fall short this time.”

Ma Yu had his head down at this time, and he was fixing his book.

He heard that Lu Song’s Ning Wang long history is also the Shandong nationality, this person was also a graduate, on the basis of their own had been in Shandong, into Mr. Liu Sijing under the door to read for two years, and the long history, but also in the Hongwu years into the door under the study of a few years, is also considered to be their own brother.

He decided to repair a letter, although at a glance the ship has not yet been built, but first pave the way, if you can help to carry some of His Highness the King of Ning’s goods, which is not only good for the order, the most important thing is that, once with the King of Ning’s family climbed into the trade, then the future fleet of goodwill, will have great benefits.

He deliberated, putting pen to paper, and every word in the epistle needed to be carefully considered.

On the one hand, one must not appear mercenary in the sense that one must talk about the love of a brother and a teacher. On the other hand, it is necessary to give certain hints so that the other party knows what he is trying to do.

It’s like dancing on a tightrope; it has to be unbiased, and any deviation a little too far on either side could cause the other side to recoil.

Soon the epistle was completed.

He blew the ink, looked up and smiled and said, “will not have to worry about the test, reading to do the article is so, you know the tricks of the trade, you can put down a thousand words, if you only know rote memorization, but it is difficult to put down the pen.”

Ma San, however, was still worried and wanted to say something else.

Ma Yu but sighed: “These days in Qixia, Fangzhi the world has changed, hey …… the world’s situation, once the change up, if you can not go with the trend, the future may not be what will happen?”

After a pause, he then said: “You have not read the book, do not know the reason. Some time ago, I read the book, there is a saying, said: the dragon can be big, can be small, can rise can be hidden; big is the rise of the clouds spit fog, small is hidden in the hidden form; rise is soaring in the universe, hidden is lurking in the waves. You see, the dragon rides the time to change, as if people have the will to cross the four seas. This great man in the world, also should be like this, only can bend and stretch, change with the times, when the man.”

With such profound words, Ma San did not understand since and only kept blinking his eyes.

Seeing him like this, Ma Yu shook his head and said, “All in all, you should speak less and look more, by my side, sooner or later you will be able to get the hang of it, and it’s not likely that in the future, I’ll have to borrow you.”

As Ma Yu said this, he carefully sealed the letter and handed it to Ma San, repeatedly urging, “Send it out without delay.”

Ma San had to take the letter in grandeur, hurriedly went.

The nineteenth year of the Yongle opened in the spring.

This early spring session test attracted everyone’s attention.

This time, after the readers suffered a huge blow, finally …… encountered a thing worthy of all the readers’ attention and not blocking the heart.

Lifters from all over the world have long since converged on the city of Nanjing.

Immediately after that, came the triennial imperial examinations.

For this imperial examination, Zhu Di did show greater interest.

He knows how to use a big stick in one hand and sweet dates in the other.

Right now the whole world, in addition to Zhili, whether it is the parents to the local gentry, these people are still stabilizing the world’s power, if they are pressed by their head desperately whack, anyone who can not stand. Once these people crazy, if sex to a broken pot, although the pacification of the rebellion around, for Zhu Di is nothing, can trigger the world’s turmoil, as well as countless people’s dislocation, but Zhu Di do not want to see.

Now the new policy carried out by the Taiping government, temporarily with the world’s provinces as well as prefectures have nothing to do with, in that case, then borrowing the imperial examinations, to express the importance of the readers, to give them the first feed a sweet date, and then hit them hard, to whack them squarely for the top of the emperor’s art.

Therefore, for the examination, Zhu Di is extremely important, the Ministry of Household Secretary Xia Yuanji for the examination, and several times to ask the preparation of the examination, and under the imperial decree, the order of Yingtianfu to the Beijing of the lift, must be taken care of.

A session of the examination down, at this time the civil society for the imperial examinations of the discussion, obviously has covered up the matter of the previous Taipingfu out to sea.

This is actually understandable, after all, this imperial examination determines the fate of countless people. Those in high school will become the future ministers who will govern the world, not to mention …… the many anecdotes of the readers are quite a lot, and there is a lot of room for discussion.

Zhang Anshi, on his end, was happy to be out of the limelight.

He has to be busy with too many things, to earn the sea trade this sum of money, but it is not easy, the clans to contact, the foundation should be tamped down, the silver of the money bank should be spread out, the military and civilian people side also need to preach the benefits of overseas.

There are too many stereotypes that need to be slowly dissolved and too many barriers that need to be broken down.

Not to mention other things, it is a problem to utilize the river boats walking in the river to pick up the cargo after the sea ships docked at the Songjiang port.

Songjiang Province also carried out a new policy, but it was far less enlightened than Taiping Province.

Zhang Anshi had no choice but to plead with the court to set aside a piece of land at the mouth of the Songjiang River as a harbor under the jurisdiction of Taipingfu.

The only thing that pleased Zhang Anshi, on the contrary, was the preparation of the customs.

Yu Qian, this person, the work is very structured, not to mention that he is in the county king’s residence, after contacting a large number of official documents, for the operation of the Taiping government, has long been familiar with.

Although he is young, he has his own way of doing things, and he doesn’t like Zhang Anshi or other people to tell him what to do, but he only does what he wants to do.

For Zhang Anshi, this is actually a good thing, customs issues, there is no need to adapt, just need to do it according to the rules to come.

More importantly, he would also be able to worry less and have more time to get busy with other things.

After the beginning of spring, Zhu Di summoned Zhang Anshi for an audience.

When Zhang Anshi arrived at the cultural building, he realized that today is the day of the release of the list.

Zhang Anshi is one of the few people who are not very enthusiastic about the Congressional Examination.

It’s a matter for the readers, it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with him.

On the contrary, Xia Yuanji, full of red light, the list presented to Zhu Di, Zhu Di roughly a look, then said: “This will be the yuan, but is the North?”

Zhu looked surprised.

The ministers are also stunned, especially Hu Guang, traditionally …… are candidates of Jiangxi nationality, rounded off the will test and the temple test of the first three, if it is among the first three, there is one is not a reader of Jiangxi nationality, all belong to the accident.

But who expected that this time …… a Northman actually appeared.

Zhu Di was shocked and said, “Interesting, this Ma Yu, is a person from Laizhou Province, do you all have an impression of this person?”

The crowd was silent, with bewilderment in their eyes.

Not many people remember much about northern readers.

Zhang Anshi, however, vaguely remembered that the first northern scholar of the Ming Dynasty, seems to be surnamed Ma, but I do not know if it is this person. However, this person’s life, as a matter of fact, should be in the next examination in the high school scholar, should not be in the Yongle eighteen years of high school.

It seems to be for this reason that when I was on my way to the capital for this imperial examination, I had to give up the examination because I heard that my mother was sick.

Could it be that history has changed? After Zhang Anshi s many remedies were introduced, medicine had already made great progress, and although his mother had gotten sick, she was not so sick as to be life-threatening, so …… the person who was supposed to shine three years later ended up radiating light in advance.

“This person is powerful, I never thought that a scholar of Shandong origin would be as powerful as this!” Zhu Di’s entire face was filled with red light.

Out of the imbalance between the north and south of the imperial examinations, now suddenly out of an anomaly, for Zhu Di, is undoubtedly a heavenly good thing.

………………

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