The ruthless emperor in the late Ming Dynasty forced Chongzhen to abdicate at the beginning

Chapter 304

Fengyue Division has supported nearly 9 people, and the number of people under the Propaganda Supervisor is also quite large, more than 3.

Almost all counties in the south have branches of the Propaganda Supervisor. Although each county has only one to three official members, they cooperate with storytellers and entertainers in restaurants and tea shops.

It is precisely because of these storytellers and entertainers that illiterate ordinary people, peddlers and pawns, can also understand the content of each issue of the royal newspaper in real time.

Moreover, if there are any major military and political events, such as the government issued a decree or imperial edict, the storytellers would have to take the newspapers to various towns and explain the contents of the newspapers to the local villagers. This would undoubtedly be a huge expense.

Not only that, in order to quickly send each issue of the royal newspaper from Nanjing to the provincial capitals and counties in a short period of time, the Propaganda Supervisor had to build a transportation network covering the entire south. Fortunately, all the newspapers were transported , One person and one horse can travel hundreds of miles a day.

Although it is also possible to ask the postal supervisor to help deliver newspapers, unless it is an urgent [-] or [-] miles, it will take at least half a month from Nanjing to a county in Guangzhou.

Such a slow speed is obviously not conducive to the promotion of newspapers, so Dong Xiaowan and Li Xiangjun had to build a separate transportation network to deliver newspapers.

This is also the reason for the huge publicity and monitoring expenses in the past two years, because most of the money has been spent on opening branches and building a transportation network.

As for the printing factory, the initial investment is only a little larger, and the cost has dropped sharply after the scale has increased.

It can be said that besides wages, the current publicity supervisors have very little other costs.

But it is still beyond the means. The hundreds of thousands of newspapers every three days can only be sold for a few thousand taels at most, and ten issues a month are only tens of thousands of taels.

Apart from selling newspapers, the Propaganda Supervisor hardly had any additional income, and had to be subsidized by Fengyue Division with a large amount of money every month in order to operate normally.

For this reason, Li Xiangjun and Dong Xiaowan also had their brains scratched and tried their best to achieve a balance of income and expenditure, but they still couldn't think of a good way to make money.

The point is that this is only the south. If it continues to cover the north, northwest, and southwest regions, the Propaganda Supervisor will have to spend at least several million taels of silver.

So after Dong Xiaowan finished reporting, the two women lowered their heads, anxiously waiting for Emperor Zhu's instructions, very worried that he would dismiss the propaganda supervisor.

But the worry of the two is obviously superfluous. Zhang Yan has this idea, but Zhu Cihong knows the importance of publicity supervision. This is the control of the power of public opinion. Not to mention the mere 300 million silver, no matter how much money is worth it .

"The cost of the propaganda department is really high, and it is necessary to set up our own transportation network, but it seems a bit wasteful to invest so much manpower, material and financial resources, and only sell hundreds of thousands of newspapers in each issue."

When Zhu Cihong said this, he pondered for a while, and said, "That's good, the content of the current royal newspaper is too complicated, and I read it occasionally, military and state affairs, essays and interesting stories, business, farming, and all of them are all put on one newspaper. , something is not suitable, you can separate it.

For example, it is divided into five types of newspapers: Daming Royal Government Affairs Daily, Military Daily, Commercial Daily, Fengyue Daily and Literature Daily. If the newspaper is easy to sell, print more, and if the newspaper is not easy to sell, print less. It can be every three days, every seven days, or every half month..."

After Zhu Cihong finished speaking, Li Xiangjun immediately replied: "Your Majesty, in fact, Sister Xiaowan and I have already had this idea, but we are not as detailed as Your Majesty. We originally planned to separate the Fengyue chapter and divide each The price of a newspaper has risen every time, and it specializes in publishing some essays, anecdotes and novels, and because the length of the novel is too long, one issue cannot be published at all. This is very attractive to many scholars who like the previous issue of novels. If you can read the second half of the novel, you are willing to spend dozens or hundreds of words to buy the next issue of the newspaper."

The two women apparently also discovered the huge business opportunity of serializing novels in newspapers, and they also did research.

Hearing that the novel was published in the newspaper, Zhang Yan also looked a little unnatural, but it only took a moment to recover.

"Well, your idea is right. It coincides with me. From now on, each newspaper can publish a few more novels, and each issue can publish [-] to [-] words. As long as you are willing to publish your novels in the newspaper Yes, you can give some manuscript fees, and you can set the specific price yourself!"

Zhu Cihong was not surprised that the two women could think of this point. After all, the newspapers have come out, and thinking of serializing novels, it will be a matter of time, so he simply supplemented the ideas of the two of them.

Seeing that His Majesty not only did not object, but was more thoughtful than they thought, the two were delighted and wished they could go back immediately and prepare to issue a new newspaper to sell money.

"The price of military newspapers and political newspapers can be as high as seven cents a copy, and the prices of other newspapers can be higher. You can figure it out. Within two years, try to cover the newspapers in all counties across the country."

Zhu Cihong added another sentence.

"It's Your Majesty!"

The two girls immediately replied excitedly.

The little emperor secretly said that he was really courageous, and he didn't even bat an eyelid for the annual expenditure of several million taels of silver.

Immediately, Zhu Cihong waved his hands to let the two girls back down first, but they didn't let them go out of the palace directly.

After the two women left, Zhu Cihong looked at Zhang Yan again, seeing that she was flipping through the memorabilia by herself, obviously not intending to give him and Chen Yuanyuan a chance to be alone, so she gave a helpless wry smile.

So he asked ambiguously, "Yuanyuan, how is the matter going?"

"Return to Your Majesty, there are already three thousand, and they are training. In a year or two, the older ones will be able to leave the teacher."

Chen Yuanyuan obviously understood what Zhu Cihong was asking, and answered after a little deliberation.

"Well, yes, but [-] is far from enough, and we have to hurry up and recruit more, and now my Daming has established a transportation business with the people of Xiyi, so our eyes can't be completely limited to my surroundings. Rare things are more expensive, you Do you understand what I mean?"

"The concubine understands!"

Chen Yuanyuan nodded after thinking for a while, and realized that Zhu Cihong wanted her to recruit some Xiyi girls to come to Daming for training.

"Hehe, children can be taught, but you don't need a lot, just a small amount of imports, and the main focus should be on Daming's surroundings, a dozen or 20 is not too much, don't be afraid to spend money, just let it go and do it." Zhu Cihong smiled. Another reminder.

"The concubine obeyed the order, oh no, the concubine didn't hear anything, it was all the concubine's own idea."

Seeing the two playing charades there, Zhang Yanxiu also frowned, although she couldn't understand a word, but seeing the cover-up of Chen Yuanyuan, she could guess that it must be something bad.

Although he was curious, he still refrained from asking.

(End of this chapter)