I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 4 New Ideas
"Your Highness, Manager Jin from the accounting office has been called for you."

Zhu Houxuan was awakened from his thoughts by Hou Sen's words. He saw a fat, white, middle-aged eunuch standing at the door of the study, giving him a flattering smile.

"Come in, Manager Jin!" Zhu Houxuan said softly.

"Your servant Jin Mu greets the prince!" Steward Jin hurriedly walked into the study and knelt on the ground.

Zhu Houxuan stood up, walked in front of him, and held out his hand to help him up. "Manager Jin, please get up quickly. There's no need to be so distant. When my father was alive, he often mentioned you in front of me, saying that you were loyal and capable."

Manager Jin stood up, looking grateful, but he didn't dare to relax at all. "I didn't expect that grandpa still remembered me when I was little." After saying this, he actually started crying.

The "Grandpa He" mentioned by Manager Jin is Zhu Houxuan's father, the fourth King of Jing, whose posthumous title was He.

Zhu Houxuan did not interrupt Manager Jin's crying, but waited quietly for him to finish crying.

Manager Jin was also very tactful and only cried twice before quickly stopping. "I have brought the account books that Your Highness asked for. Please have a look at them."

After saying this, the eunuchs waiting outside the study moved two large wooden boxes into the study and opened them, which were filled with account books.

"Give Steward Jin a seat."

Zhu Houxuan picked up the top account book, flipped through it for a few seconds, and then put it back.

Hou Sen moved a chair and Manager Jin sat on it, but he only sat halfway.

"I asked you to come here today because I want to ask you something."

"Your Majesty, please ask me anything you want. I will tell you everything I know!"

"It has been more than two months since I inherited the title, but I still don't know what industries the mansion has, so I would like to ask Manager Jin!" Zhu Houxuan asked the question that concerned him most.

"Your Highness wants to know this!" Manager Jin breathed a sigh of relief and then began to introduce Zhu Houxuan.

The industries of Jingwang Mansion are mainly divided into three parts:

One is land property.

The land property amounted to approximately 1,500 hectares, of which 800 hectares were official land granted by the emperor. The palace did not manage it directly, but the local government collected rent from it every year and paid it to the palace.

In addition, there are more than 700 hectares of land that were acquired by the royal palace through various means, either by buying, robbing, or by donations from others. The royal palace can directly manage this land and collect 40% to 50% in rent.

The second is shops and merchant ships.

The Prince of Jing's Mansion had more than 300 shops in Qizhou City and its surrounding areas, more than 100 shops in Wuchang City, and more than 60 shops in Nanjing City. In addition, there were hundreds of large and small merchant ships, but these were all inland merchant ships with small tonnage.

The third is mountains, rivers and lakes.

These include fisheries from Chidong Lake, forests from Qilin Mountain, iron ore from Daye and several other coal mines, etc.

Although Zhu Houxuan had some expectations in his mind, he was still shocked by the data listed in the end. The Jingwang Mansion, a branch of the most marginal clan, actually had so many industries.

These industries alone are worth over a million taels of silver. The amount for the Jingwang Palace is still considered small, and those old-fashioned palaces must be worth more.

But these were not what Zhu Houxun was most concerned about. "What about those merchant ships and shops and the iron mine in Daye? Didn't the dynasty prohibit royal family members from engaging in the four occupations? The four occupations are scholar, farmer, merchant, and artisan. How can these industries be associated with the word commerce?" Zhu Houxun asked casually.

"Your Highness has been concentrating on studying before and has never asked about the mundane affairs of the palace, so naturally he doesn't know the intricacies of this." Steward Jin sat up straight, "The royal family of this dynasty has four business prohibitions, but the business prohibition has long been in name only."

After some explanation from Manager Jin, Zhu Houxuan finally understood what was going on.

In fact, it was because the various royal palaces had been secretly engaged in business for a long time, and the emperor turned a blind eye to it. Later, when Prince Xiang was the most favored, Emperor Chenghua once directly rewarded Prince Xiang with thousands of shops in Xiangyang City.

Originally, the local royal palaces would not openly engage in business, but would conduct it secretly using white gloves or something.

However, with the direct establishment of imperial farms and stores by Emperor Zhengde, the commercial activities of the royal palaces in various places gradually became public. Since the emperor took the lead in doing business, it is natural that we cannot blame the royal palaces below for following suit.

After learning all this, Zhu Houxuan fell into deep thought again. The information he got this time made the ideas that had been lingering in his mind become clearer and clearer.
Seeing his own prince like this, Hou Sen quickly signaled to let Manager Jin leave, fearing that he would interrupt Zhu Houxuan's train of thought.
After a long time, Zhu Houxuan walked to the desk and picked up a piece of rice paper on it. There were three words written on it: Military, Politics, and Hanyang Ironworks.

There were two big red crosses on the words "Military" and "Politics", and a red question mark next to the word "Hanyang Ironworks".

He looked at the paper, picked up a pen and added another word on it: business.

Then, without stopping, he wrote the words "coal-iron complex" next to the words "Hanyang Iron Works", and then wrote the words "First Industrial Revolution" next to it.

He looked at the words on the paper, a smile appeared on the corner of his mouth, he changed to a red pen, and without hesitation connected the two words "business" and "First Industrial Revolution" together.

Thanks to the fact that the Hanyang Iron Works was highlighted in modern history textbooks, the moment he mentioned the Hanyang Iron Works, the information about the Hanyang Iron Works in his previous life popped up in his mind.

The Hanyang Iron Works was China's first coal-iron complex, and the coal-iron complex was the core industrial system of the First Industrial Revolution, which was also a revolution of coal and iron.

This gave Zhu Houxuan a vague idea in his mind, and then he decided to summon Manager Jin.

The information he got from Manager Jin made him suddenly enlightened.

The Ming Dynasty has always looked down upon industry and commerce, and the status of merchants and craftsmen is not high.

This contempt caused a loophole in the airtight prohibitions of the Ming Dynasty to appear. This loophole could not be exploited by other princes. However, Zhu Houxuan, as a time traveler, was ready to take advantage of this loophole to vigorously develop industry and commerce, and then ignite the flame of the first industrial revolution in the Ming Dynasty.
As long as he can ignite the flame of the Industrial Revolution in Ming Dynasty, his trip through time will not be in vain.

Thinking of this, Zhu Houxuan could not help but pick up the account book on the top of the box and turned to the latest page, where he saw the following words:

Jingfu currently has
Gold: 13,845 taels and 7 cents;
145,378 taels and 5 cents of silver;
74,372 strings of copper coins;

136,567 strings of Ming Dynasty treasure notes;
one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four bolts of cloth;
543 pieces of silk;
Three hundred and thirty pieces of Shu brocade
Although he had watched it several times, Zhu Houxuan still felt a little bit unbelievable when he watched it again. It turned out that a very marginal Jingwang Mansion had such financial resources.

A rough calculation showed that it was worth about 300,000 or 400,000 taels of silver, and these were just floating assets, not to mention the various gems, treasures, antique calligraphy and paintings in the palace, plus the various real estates previously owned. Zhu Houxun couldn't even calculate how much assets the Jing Palace had.

Is this the strength of the Ming Dynasty in raising pigs, not Zhu?

How much blood and tears of the people must have gone into this!

If he had not traveled through time, all the people's money would have been squandered by the descendants of the Zhu family and used for all kinds of enjoyment, and would not have promoted social progress at all!

But now he has traveled through time, and the Jingwang Mansion, which has accumulated the people's wealth for decades, is his, and it has become his confidence.
"These hard-earned money of the people will become the fuel for the Ming Dynasty to start its industrial revolution!" Zhu Houxuan said softly, with a determined light shining in his eyes.

(End of this chapter)