Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

The tenth day of the first lunar month, Xiyuan.

Zhu Youjian summoned princes and nobles to hold a gathering on this day.

Most of the nobles who attended the party were in high spirits. After the emperor sold them the shares of the Ming Shipping Group, these people became even more closely connected.

In particular, Duke of Ying, Zhang Weixian, who was regarded as the head of the nobles and was treated as a feudal noble by the emperor, was the most popular among the feudal nobles. Many people admired his reputation and intended to establish good relations with him.

In the past, Zhang Weixian might not have been interested in these upstarts.

However, as he was preparing to establish a vassal state in Annan, he had to socialize with these people.

They are all shareholders of the Ming Shipping Group, and they have shipping companies in their respective vassal states. When Britain opens its vassal states in the future, they may be able to use them. Even though he is the head of the nobles, he should be polite to these people.

Moreover, he is already old now and might die at any time. His son Zhang Zhiji is not a good person, and his grandson Zhang Shize is better but too young. After he passes away, he might need someone to take care of him.

This made Zhang Weixian very friendly to these people, and made many people feel refreshed. They felt that they were worthy of being the top noble family of the Ming Dynasty, a duke family that had lasted for more than 200 years.

Duke Chengguo Zhu Chunchen, who was also from the duke's family, was watching this scene with envy and regretted not buying more shares in the shipping group.

As a nobleman who was granted a fiefdom by the emperor to the Wude River area, he is now also a member of the fiefdom. When the emperor sold the shares of the Ming Shipping Group before, he was allowed to purchase a maximum of 1% of the shares.

However, Duke Chengguo Zhu Chunchen believed that the Ming Shipping Group was not worth 10 million taels, and that this might be the emperor asking the nobles of the fiefdom to donate.

So he kept dragging the matter on until Mao Chenglu sold his shares in Dongjiang Shipping Company. He then turned his fleet and port into a shipping company, and after calculation, he valued it at 100,000 taels, and exchanged half of his shares for 0.5% of the shipping group's shares.

Neither party contributed any money, but they exchanged shares with each other.

At that time, Zhu Chunchen was quite proud of this, thinking that he had avoided another plunder by the emperor.

But after the shipping group's shares went public and the stock price soared, he suddenly realized:

I went wrong with this matter.

The emperor was not selling their stocks to make money, but to give money to the feudal nobles.

If he had been willing to purchase one percent of the shares in full at that time, he would have earned more than that now.

This made him feel like a knife was cutting his heart, and he thought he had lost money.

For these powerful people, making less money means losing money.

Zhu Chunchen felt very painful about this and felt that he had suffered a great loss.

He even blamed the emperor in his heart for not explaining things clearly.

If he had been told earlier that the shipping group's stocks could make money, he would have bought the shares even if it meant paying 100,000 taels of silver.

The Xue family of Yangwuhou also felt the same as him.

This family, like the Zhu family of Duke Chengguo, was a hereditary aristocracy sent by the emperor to establish a fiefdom.

However, due to disputes within the family and issues such as the climate in Southeast Asia, the Yangwu Marquisate has not been opened up yet as preliminary preparations are still underway.

This naturally made them hesitate when buying shares in the shipping group. In the end, they only bought 0.5, the same as the Chengguo family.

The two families now felt that they were in the same boat. Xue Lian, Marquis of Yangwu, also came together with Zhu Chunchen:
"Master Zhu, what do you say we should do now?"

"Can we ask His Majesty to buy another 0.5 shares?"

Zhu Chunchen glanced at him unhappily and said:

"It was a little over 100,000 taels before, how much are you going to pay now?"

"The price at the exchange is still 150,000!"

After the initial frenzy, the share price of Daming Shipping Group has now fallen back, but it still remains above 1.5 yuan. If it is below this number, it will be quickly bought up.

Therefore, the valuation of the Ming Shipping Group has been regarded as 15 million taels.

If you want to buy 1% of the shares, you have to pay at least 150,000.

There are many families in the Ming Dynasty who can afford this money, but if they really go to the stock exchange to buy it, they may not be able to buy even one percent of the shares.

Because the families of the Duke of England, the Duke of Jiangling and others held on to their stocks and never sold them.

Even Zhu Chunchen and Xue Lian stopped selling soon after they initially sold some of their shares. This was because they realized that the shares of the shipping group were worth more than that. As more vassal states were opened up, they would be more valuable in the future. Otherwise, Yangwu Hou Xue Lian would not want to buy another 0.5 shares.

After being ridiculed by Zhu Chunchen, Yangwu Hou Xue Lian did not get angry, but continued:

"Fifteen thousand is not a bad price. We can sell bonds anyway."

"Man Gui took out a knighthood and issued 150,000 bonds."

"Our fiefdom is so big, can't we sell it as well?"

This immediately made Zhu Chunchen think.

Because according to this price, his fiefdom of 625 li square is equivalent to 9375 knighthoods of li square, with a total value of million.

This number made him feel breathless just thinking about it, and at the same time he truly realized where the real wealth of the feudal nobles lay:

"Even if we can only sell half of it, it would still be worth 40 to 50 million taels!"

"The annual revenue of the imperial court is only about 20 million."

Zhu Chunchen, whose breathing was a little rapid, thought of this and said to Xue Lian:

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"Since Mangui can be sold, we can sell it as well."

"Go contact other nobles with fiefs and ask them to make suggestions to the emperor together."

He planned to unite the power of the feudal nobles and ask the emperor to allow the feudal nobles to sell their fiefs.

After receiving his promise, Xue Lian, Marquis of Yangwu, immediately contacted other nobles of the fiefdom.

However, most of these nobles had little interest because their fiefdoms were not very large.

Especially for those lower-ranking nobles who donated to obtain their titles, their fiefs were purchased at this price. Now they are asked to sell them at the same price, how can they be willing?

Even the representative of the Han Wang vassal state, which owns the Fang Qianli vassal state, has little interest in this. Because the Han Wang had already divided a lot of the fiefdoms of South Korea, and the current Han Wang occupies the North Sea Island, and does not want any other forces to appear in the country.

This made Xue Lian go around in circles, but he didn't get any response from other nobles.

So when he came back and told Duke Cheng about this, they both looked at each other in bewilderment:
A duke's support and a marquis's appearance failed to get the lower nobles to respond. This was, of course, a great failure in their eyes.

At this time, the two realized that their previous actions had caused many nobles to not regard them as fellow travelers. They thought that although they had fiefs, they were still old nobles after all.

Those who have been rooted in their fiefdoms for a long time like the King of Han and the Duke of Jiangling are the real upstarts.

These invisible divisions may seem ridiculous, but they actually represent the division of the future aristocratic groups.

After the emperor successively granted titles to nobles such as the King of Han, the Duke of Jiangling, the Earl of Ningyuan, and the Earl of Dongjiang, and enfeoffed some lower-ranking nobles through donations, a new aristocratic force had gradually formed and gathered into a huge force.

This force was led by the royal family, with King Han Zhu Danshen as the leader, and by the outsiders, with Duke Jiangling Zhang Tongchang as the leader. They represented the interests of the fiefdom nobles.

Duke of England Zhang Weixian was the fellow traveler they chose and also their spokesperson in the court.

In the future aristocratic council, they will also be united and pass resolutions that are beneficial to them.

Although Duke Chengguo and Marquis Yangwu had been allocated fiefdoms by the emperor, they had not invested much in the development of their fiefdoms and not even any core members of their families had gone there.

Naturally, he was not recognized by the feudal nobles and was excluded from their small circle.

This made Chengguogong Zhu Chunchen very angry, and at the same time he also felt a little regretful:
Apart from the Mu family of Duke Qian, which was equivalent to owning a fief, the Zhu family of Duke Cheng was the first of the five dukes to be granted a fief.

The emperor's decision to enfeoff him north of the Heilongjiang River was certainly meant as a punishment, but it was also intended to make him the leader of the nobles, hoping to use his status to lead the old nobles to open up their own fiefdoms.

As a result, he did not hear the hidden meaning and did not seize the opportunity, so that these feudal nobles went to find the Duke of England again and colluded with each other.

Now that Zhu Chunchen has figured this out, he feels quite regretful.

If he put more effort into developing his fiefdom, his influence among the nobles would be greatly enhanced. Moreover, the valuation of Chengguo Shipping Company could not be only 100,000 taels.

He had wasted the previous six months and even lost the initiative.

I don’t know how long it will take to regain this position in the future.

Compared with the feudal nobles surrounding Duke of England Zhang Weixian, and the fact that no one responded when he went to ask for help, he really felt that the world was unpredictable, and that as the Duke of Chengguo, he would also be neglected one day. (End of this chapter)