Optimus One Pillar of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 227 Chapter 220 Five The Bad Guy Wang Daoqiu

After being away for more than half a year, he owed his wife too much. That night Wang Daoqiu worked as a cow and a horse and paid the public rations.Early the next morning, I went shopping with Shen Xiangning, buying all kinds of things.

In the evening, he dragged his tired body to the Chengguo Palace to hold a meeting with shareholders and plan for next year's fortune.

Entering Chengguo Duke's Mansion, Wang Daoqiu also had a long experience here.This is the residence of the Duke of Chengguo. He is so brazen and unscrupulous. He is not afraid that Emperor Jiajing will talk to him. Who do you think you are?

Everywhere he passed in the Duke Cheng's Mansion, Wang Daoqiu could feel the arrogance of the big gold chain coming to his face. It could even be described as a golden corridor and a jade wall.

Especially a rockery placed there for decoration in the courtyard. Wang Daoqiu knew at a glance that it was Taihu stone from his hometown of Huzhou.Moreover, the Taihu stone in Duke Cheng's mansion was nearly two stories high, and its base was very large. Wang Daoqiu looked at it as weighing at least a dozen tons.

It is nothing to transport more than ten tons of ornamental stones from Zhejiang to Beijing with the mechanical level of later generations.But now in the Ming Dynasty in the [-]th century, there are no cranes, and everything has to be transported by manpower and animal power.

And use human and animal power to move more than ten tons of Taihu stone from the mountain, move it to the dock, get it on a ship and transport it to Beijing, and finally get it off the ship and move it to the Chengguogong Mansion to put it away. How much manpower does it cost? How much money does animal power cost?
Think about Song Huizong's "Hua Shi Gang". It took the whole country of the Song Dynasty to recruit hundreds of thousands of people. It took many years and many families were destroyed to transport these stones from Jiangnan to Kaifeng. !But now Zhu Xizhong has done this kind of thing just because he has nothing in his mouth. He is a rich man, an absolute rich man, and he is willing to spend money!

Feeling the "magnificence" of Chengguo's Mansion in the Ming Dynasty, Wang Daoqiu followed the housekeeper of Chengguo's Mansion, passing through the small courtyards and gardens of Chengguo's Mansion, and bypassing a lotus pond full of dead branches and leaves. , and passed through a secluded path, and then we arrived at the place where Zhu Xizhong, the Duke of Chengguo, hosted a banquet for Wang Daoqiu and other nobles, a small garden inlaid with plate glass.

This small garden inlaid with glass is, to put it bluntly, similar to a large greenhouse flower garden built with plate glass in our later generations.Because it is a greenhouse, in the late autumn when everything in Beijing is withered, there are still red flowers and green leaves here, and a few duckweeds in the small pond are also green.

When Wang Daoqiu arrived here, there were already twenty or thirty princes and princes, drinking tea and bragging.As soon as Wang Daoqiu arrived, Zhu Xizhong, the Duke of Chengguo, hurriedly led all the princes to come up to see Wang Daoqiu.

After a routine exchange of compliments, mutual assistance and care, Zhu Xizhong asked his servants to remove the refreshments and ordered the food and wine to be served.

After ordering the food and wine to be served, Zhu Xizhong snapped his fingers in the air, and then the melodious sound of guzheng, silk and bamboo, and the ethereal singing of a singer resounded in the greenhouse garden, which looked very classy.

Treating guests to a meal at home, and also calling a professional band and professional singers to help him, Wang Daoqiu could only sigh with emotion, the Duke Zhu Xizhong is really not short of money.

The guests and hosts were seated, and everyone began to pretend to be affectionate.But not long after, Wang Daoqiu heard that the music style at the banquet changed drastically, from melodious silk and bamboo to cheerful Yuefu melody, and the singer's singing also changed from ethereal to high-pitched.

And in this cheerful and high-pitched music and singing, waves of clear and melodious footbells came from one side, and then I saw a group of beautiful girls in neat rows and elegant clothes, taking small steps, meandering and dancing gracefully, following A fairy floated over, holding a tray in one hand and bringing up the dishes one after another.

When these girls served dishes one by one to each table like flowers and butterflies, Wang Daoqiu saw clearly the girl who served his table.The body is covered with embroidered tulle, and inside is a red bellyband full of temptation. The coolness of the clothes is comparable to that of the young ladies in the summer nightclubs of later generations.

Look no further!A dignified bachelor of the Ming Dynasty's cabinet cannot make people think that he is a pig brother.So Wang Daoqiu withdrew his gaze and stopped looking at the girl serving the dishes.

Today, Duke Cheng is treating guests to separate meals, with one person serving a small table. There are not many dishes on each table, but the quality is absolutely excellent. They are all famous palace dishes: steamed bear paws, cooked puffer fish, cooked tiger meat, and dragon vegetables. , roasted venison, jellyfish stew, steamed orangutan lip, flower pearls and a fish soup.

When the dishes on each table were served, Zhu Xizhong, as the host, stood up first and toasted to the guests: "Come on, come on, everyone, please drink this cup to the full. It is a rare gathering of our close friends today. There is no need to be polite, but I hope you can have a good time. Get drunk and rest."

"A drunken rest"

"A drunken rest"

...............

When the host stood up to toast, the guests would naturally give him face, so they all stood up with wine glasses in hand, shouted slogans, and drank it all together with Zhu Xizhong.

The guests sat down after drinking a glass. Zhu Xizhong held up the wine glass with a smile and continued to stand there. He also said some kind words like thanking everyone for the face, and then the banquet began.

The flower grower was like that. It was clear to everyone why they came to Zhu Xizhong's place for this meal today.But in the beginning, no one said anything serious, they just talked nonsense, lies, polite words, and complimented each other.

It wasn't until after three rounds of wine, five dishes, and almost all the food and drink that the host Zhu Xizhong brought the topic down to business.

Zhu Xizhong first praised Wang Daoqiu and asked everyone to toast Wang Daoqiu, and then talked about dividends.Tonight's meal was just for dividends, so Wang Daoqiu was prepared and took out the Japanese account book summary that Shen Xiangning gave him from his sleeve.

Wang Daoqiu said: "Everyone, this is the account book that my Lord Taishan sent back from the Japanese Kingdom. I will introduce it to you here. After I conquered the Japanese Kingdom this year, we built seven concessions in the Japanese Kingdom, covering a total area of ​​[-] More than [-] acres. There are now a large number of commercial facilities and workshops built in these concessions, half of which we rent to Japanese merchants. The Japanese merchants rent the commercial facilities and workshops we built. They all want Pay rent and taxes to us."

"Hahahaha, this is good, this is good, I like this. The land belongs to them, and they have to pay rent and taxes to us when they arrive. This is good, this is good!"

"Hahahaha"

"Hahahaha"

………………

When I heard that Japanese merchants had to pay land rent and taxes to us on the territory of Japan, the nobles all laughed happily. They all thought that those Japanese people were so careless?
Seeing that these nobles were happy, Wang Daoqiu hurriedly explained to them: "The merchants of the Japanese country pay rent and taxes to us, which is something they can't do. After all, the entire Japanese country only has our two provinces of Nanzhili and Zhejiang combined. It’s so big, but it’s such a small territory, and they are divided into 66 countries. An area as big as a county here is one country. With so many countries, they fight every day to grab territory.”

"With wars being fought every day, military expenditures are high, and taxes levied on businessmen are also high. What's even worse is that they are countries next to each other, and they all want the other country to play tricks quickly so that they can occupy the other country's territory. Therefore, all their countries are hostile to each other and blockade each other. This also causes those merchants, if they want their goods to enter and exit each country, they have to spend a lot of money to bribe soldiers to let them let them go."

"As for our concession in the Japanese country, the commercial tax there is a fixed tithe, and I have signed an agreement with the Japanese princes. When our Ming caravan goes in and out of the Japanese princes to do business normally, they must provide convenience and preferential tax rates. Therefore, Comparing the two, compared to staying with the vassal states of Japan, opening workshops and shops in our concession, and letting our caravans transport their goods to various places in Japan for sale, it seems more It's a good deal. To put it bluntly, there is nothing that can be done about those Japanese businessmen. They are too weak and are just fat sheep in the eyes of various Japanese princes. They need my Ming Dynasty's strength to protect their normal business, so it is natural for them to pay protection fees. ”

Wang Daoqiu explained a cruel fact, that is, your country is weak and lawless. People who hold power bully their own people, all of them are unscrupulous, but in front of foreign adults, they are even meaner than bitches.At this time, if businessmen want to avoid being slaughtered as pigs, they must play the banner of foreigners.This is why so many bosses will spend money to hire a white-skinned person to be named "Chairman" in their company.

After talking about the reasons why Japanese merchants were "stupid", Wang Daoqiu continued: "This year is the first year of concession construction. We have spent a lot of money building ports, buildings, roads, aqueducts and walls. So we The rent and taxes collected in the concession this year are not enough for the construction costs, so we can’t divide it.”

Building a concession is just like building an industrial zone in Tongzhou. It requires a large amount of construction costs at the beginning. It will definitely be difficult to make ends meet in the first year, but it will be better in the second year.All of you have experience with this.So Wang Daoqiu said that there would be no money for the rental income and taxes from the concession this year. All the distinguished officials understood this, and no one questioned Wang Daoqiu.

After talking about the lack of money in the concession, Wang Daoqiu began to talk about the money.He said: "Although all the rents and taxes from the Japanese concession this year have been invested in construction, leaving everyone with no money to share. However, our export trade and mining with the Japanese country this year are still very profitable. So far this year, We exported to Japan a total of 120 million pieces of cotton cloth, 74 shi of grain, 39 pieces of weapons, a large number of agricultural tools and kitchen utensils, as well as a small amount of tea, silk, porcelain, Chinese herbal medicine and glass products, with a net profit of more than 420 million taels."

"In addition, the gold, silver and sulfur mines that we jointly developed with the local princes of the Japanese country can also provide us with a profit of nearly 300 million taels. And this is only the profit in the first few months. Now we have various mines in the Japanese country. It is being expanded, and when it is completed in the next two years, the annual profit will be at least tens of millions of taels."

Who wouldn't be excited about mining, especially gold and silver mining?The nobles are very satisfied with Wang Daoqiu's ability to capture all the gold and silver mines in the Wa country in such a short period of time.But for Wang Daoqiu to distribute half of the proceeds from the gold and silver mines to the Japanese, the nobles felt that it was too much.

So as soon as Wang Daoqiu finished the introduction, Zhu Xizhong, on behalf of all the honorable ministers, said to Wang Daoqiu: "Liangzhen! Can you make those Japanese obediently hand over the gold and silver mines in their hands in such a short period of time?" . We are very satisfied with this. Each of our families has also summoned its own craftsmen, and the stewards have taken them to the Japanese country for mining. The news came back that the gold and silver mines in the Japanese country are all large mines. A good mine, if you dig it all out, it will be a mountain of gold and silver. Liangzhen! If you give half of such a huge wealth to those stupid Japanese people, is that too much? We think giving [-]% to the Japanese will be enough."

Short-sighted and greedy, these nobles of the Ming Dynasty!Wang Daoqiu despised these Ming Dynasty, so-called noble people.But because people still need to provide money and people, they have to increase their investment.

Therefore, Wang Daoqiu suppressed his contempt for them and explained: "Dong Chengguo, everyone, in fact, the real distribution to the Japanese is not as much as you think. Yes, on the surface, we are distribution to the Japanese five Yes, but don’t forget that after the Japanese divided the gold and silver, they returned it to us and bought things from us."

"Not to mention anything else, as far as the ironware is concerned, the original price of the ironware in the Japanese country was five times that of the Ming Dynasty. After I went there, I reduced the price difference to three times. Even like this before, we still had at least seventy percent of the ironware sold to the Japanese country. If you think about it, the Japanese people got [-]% of the profits from the gold and silver mines. Later, we can use the method of selling their things to earn [-]% of the profits. Then the gold they actually got What is the share of the silver mine? It’s actually less than [-]%. To put it bluntly, this means that losses within the embankment will be compensated outside the embankment. We will give them [-]% of the gold and silver mines, and then use unequal trade methods to share the money with them. Yes, earn it back."

Loss within the embankment, repair outside the embankment, modern business, a more hidden method of exploitation.It's similar to how the Japanese took advantage of the flower planting management's stupidity and petty advantage at the beginning of the reform.In the bidding for the purchase of various industrial equipment for flower planting, every time the price they sell is much lower than that of Europe and the United States.

And they have a very good attitude when selling things, without any of those white-skinned arrogance.But if you are really stupid and buy their equipment, then you will become their blood bag and supply them with blood every day.

Because their equipment is sold cheaply, but the price of the subsequent maintenance and spare parts of the equipment can make you kneel down and sing "conquer".Moreover, because the industrial equipment of the Japanese is of two different standards than that of Europe and the United States, there is no compatibility between the two parties.

Therefore, this kind of business only exists in this one store and there are no other branches.Unless you are willing to throw away the entire set of equipment, you can only let him take advantage of you and buy his spare parts and services.

Wang Daoqiu is now asking the Japanese to do the same for Zhonghua's history of being useless and paying tuition fees. He is using his advantages in production and technology to bully your ignorance and earn your tuition fees. Whether you accept it or not, you have to accept your fate.

(End of this chapter)