The first to take action was Qixia Trading Company.
In addition to the construction of various warehouses in Taiping Prefecture, as well as ferries and docks to cope with the large number of overseas commodities in the future, some railway branch lines were added.
That is to say, a large number of ships were ordered.
For this reason, a large number of shipyards also need to be built, and shipbuilders and laborers are recruited aggressively in shipyards.
At this time, the craze for sailing to the West has passed, but a large number of shipbuilding craftsmen are still there. Nowadays, the recruitment is vigorous, so that these people who were originally craftsmen are attracted by the salaries of Taiping Mansion. Therefore, a large number of shipbuilding craftsmen come from Fujian, Jiangsu and Zhejiang.
Craftsmen began to pour in.
For shipyards, how to quickly manufacture ships that can be launched into the sea can make a lot of money. Therefore, in order to speed up the manufacturing process, each shipyard is also racking its brains.
This is different from the ships originally built to sail to the Western Ocean.
The ships that sailed to the Western Ocean were built under the orders of the imperial court and under the supervision of the government.
In this shipyard manufacturing industry, because there are so many orders, there is room for optimization in terms of manpower management and manufacturing processes in order to speed up delivery.
Whenever any shipyard optimizes the process and improves the technology, other shipyards will immediately start copying it without hesitation. On this basis, more shipyards will think hard and continue to optimize.
Shipbuilding is a big project, involving not only wood and wood processing, but also ship painting, metal construction, canvas, cables, etc.
Because of this, workshops began to rise in various counties.
After Qixia Trading Company ordered a lot of merchant ships, other trading firms have begun to follow suit. Although other trading firms may not be sure that this sea trade can earn a lot of money, they at least know that Qixia Trading Company will not make losses.
Trading.
Immediately afterwards, other small businessmen began to follow suit.
It's just that the price of a sea-going ship is high. If you also need to purchase goods and recruit a large number of sailors and crew members to go to sea, it will cost a lot.
This is no longer something small businesses can afford.
But seeing such a good deal, it would be really tempting to remain indifferent.
At this time, some people who were trying to get things done began to appear on the market.
These people travel up and down Qixia and use their reputation to organize people to enter into partnership contracts to purchase ships. They often have enough credibility and are proficient in laws and regulations. Of course... they are often eloquent.
And Ma Yu is one of them.
He is from Shandong Juren.
In the Ming Dynasty, perhaps in Taiping Mansion, the status of scholars has been greatly reduced, and people may not even take a high look at ordinary scholars.
Juren is obviously different. In the early Ming Dynasty, people could go directly to the Ministry of Civil Affairs to select officials, and those who became officials could at least be sent out to serve as the county magistrate or chief registrar of a county.
To put it bluntly, he is a person with official status.
Not only that, Ma Yu got Jieyuan in the provincial examination in Shandong.
The reason why he did not choose to be an official was because he still wanted to take the examination and pass the imperial examination.
The Jieyuan of the Shandong Chief Envoy is basically like stepping into the ranks of Jinshi. In the future, if you are lucky enough to be among the best among Jinshi, it may not be impossible to directly become a Shujishi.
It can be said that such people are definitely the stars of tomorrow.
This gave Ma Yu a lot of room for maneuver. He first contacted the Shandong Chamber of Commerce where Qixia was located. Most of them were businessmen from Shandong. They did business in the capital or settled in Shandong.
Since they are from the same hometown, it is easy to talk to him. The Ma family is located in Shandong Province and is a scholarly family. He still has connections. Many businessmen see that he is willing to get close to him and are eager to get him.
You know, although many merchants do business in Qixia, a large amount of goods need to be sent to Shandong for sale. If you have a friend like Ma Yu, if you encounter difficulties from the officials in Shandong, you may spend thousands.
Even ten thousand taels of silver may not be able to solve it, but this trouble can be solved by writing a letter from Ma Yu.
To put it bluntly, the circles you live in are different, and what you think is a headache is just a piece of cake for others.
Ma Yu immediately began to seek loans from banks with the help of many big merchants. Some merchants from his hometown were willing to guarantee him and directly borrowed 30,000 taels of silver.
After that, Ma Yu became very handy. Instead of using all the money to order one ship, he dispersed it and directly ordered ten ships. The remaining money was raised from other merchants.
In his opinion, one ship is of little use. On the one hand, the price of ordering one ship is different from that of ordering ten ships. Because the order is large, shipyards are often willing to give some discounts. After all, it is a large order.
On the other hand, the business done by one ship under the name is different from that of ten ships under the name. If there is only one ship under the name, it may only transport some bulk cargo, but if there are ten ships, then there will be direct and some
The capital for cooperation with large merchants. For large merchants, what they require is a steady supply of goods. If the other party has more ships, the risk of supply will be smaller. They would rather pay more for shipping than be willing to accept it.
When purchasing insurance, the price of ten ships will also be slightly discounted.
In this way, by adding and subtracting, you can 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 as reading. Observing the situation of the shipping industry is like reading. As long as you grasp the key points and sort out the main relationships, you will not worry about not being able to write a good article.
On the contrary, it is like that, when the brain is hot, I just want to be able to read all the books by heart. People who only know that rote memorization is often enough to be a scholar, but it will be more difficult to go up.
When Ma Yu was raising funds, he also deliberately avoided those big merchants, because big merchants had more capital and were willing to give more money. In this way, they became the major shareholders of these ships and could control the use of the ships.
And if you are just looking for those small businessmen, one hundred taels for you and two hundred taels for them, it will be a bit more troublesome, but their shares are scattered. In this way, Ma Yu, who invested three thousand taels in one ship,
Instead, he became the largest shareholder.
As both a major shareholder and an official, he did not hesitate to negotiate with large commercial banks on cargo transportation issues. He could even directly negotiate with the government on an equal footing, even in various vassal states. These vassal states have a long history.
Even with the government, he can deal with it easily without having to compromise.
Therefore, although these ten ships were raised, in fact, Ma Yu can almost make the decisions for these ten ships, and the rest of the small businessmen can only participate in dividends at most.
What Ma Yu wants is to be able to master these ten ships. Although many people are ordering ships now, no one has officially begun to taste the benefits. Therefore, although there are many shipyards and many orders, it has not yet become a trend.
And once someone gets rich by shipping, the price of the ship and the price of transportation will probably skyrocket.
Even after Ma Yu ordered ten ships, he had already prepared that once the ships were launched, he would immediately discuss with other small merchants to use these ten ships as collateral to continue borrowing from banks and expand the scale.
mean.
He came from a scholarly family and knew very well that this thing was the same as the local gentry.
There is a difference between you having 10,000 acres of land and having 100 acres of land.
With 10,000 acres, you will have more savings every year, so you can continue to annex land. And every time there is a disaster, your ability to resist disasters will be stronger. When a famine passes and there are hungry people everywhere, you can have enough food.
Make huge profits.
And if you only have a hundred acres of land, apart from food and drink for the family, the surplus is too little. Both the ability to resist risks and the speed at which you can save surplus grain to purchase new fields are shockingly low. It may not take more than a few decades.
Your family will be ruined and you will become a tenant from now on.
The same is true for ships. The more ships you have under your name, it doesn't matter even if you are in debt, but your ability to resist risks will be greatly enhanced. The annual profits will be huge, which is not only enough to cover the annual debts, but the remaining profits are also enough to allow you to continue
The chicken lays the egg, and the egg lays the chicken.
A full month passed, and Ma Yu began to become reclusive in the eyes of his peers and classmates.
Every morning he would go out from the inn, becoming taciturn, and would not return until midnight.
After that, Ma Yu simply moved to Qixia.
Some scholars who were close friends with him also gradually lost track of his whereabouts.
Ma Yu is different from others in that his family fortune is declining. Although the family fortune of a scholarly family is declining, it is different from the family fortune of ordinary people.
It's just that the family used to have a lot of servants, a lot of wealth, and thousands of hectares of fertile land, but now there are only a few servants in the family, and life starts to become a little tight.
It was just the downturn in his life that made Ma Yu more interested in running his own family business.
What's more, he is originally from Shandong. Shandong people had a lot of experience going to sea during the Yuan Dynasty. He had heard a lot about it, so he was quite experienced in it.
Naturally, the most important thing is that in his opinion, this is simply a pie falling from the sky, just like there is a gold ingot on the ground. If he refuses to bend down to pick it up, then it will really be a sin.
But Ma Yu's servant Ma San was anxious at this time.
Ma San's face was full of sorrow and he said: "Young master, the examination is coming soon. If you don't review your lessons at this time, it will be terrible if you lose your reputation this time."
Ma Yu lowered his head at this time, he was editing a book.
He heard that the long history of King Ning of Luzon was also from Shandong. He was also from Juren. Speaking of which, he studied under Mr. Liu Sijing in Shandong for two years, and this long history also studied under Mr. Liu Sijing during the Hongwu period.
I studied under him for several years, and he was still considered my senior brother.
He decided to write a letter. Although the ship had not yet been built, he could pave a way first. If he could help carry some of His Highness Prince Ning's goods, this would not only be good for the order, but most importantly, once he negotiated with Prince Ning's Mansion,
If you enter the business, it will be of great benefit to the goodwill of the fleet in the future.
He considered and wrote, and every word in the letter needed to be carefully considered.
On the one hand, you must not appear philistine when describing the relationship between brothers. Secondly, you need to give some hints to let the other party know your intentions.
It's like dancing on a tightrope. You have to be impartial. Any deviation in either direction may cause resentment in the other party.
Soon, the letter was completed.
He blew on the ink, raised his head and said with a smile: "Don't worry about the exam, it's just like reading and writing. Once you know the secret, you can write a thousand words. If you only know how to memorize it, it will be difficult to write."
Ma San was still very worried and wanted to say something else.
Ma Yu sighed: "These days in Qixia, I realize that the world has changed. Alas... once the world's power changes, if we can't follow the trend, what will happen in the future?"
After a pause, he continued: "You haven't read the book, so you don't know the truth. A few days ago, I was reading a storybook, and there was a sentence in it, which said: Dragons can be big and small, they can rise and they can hide; when they are big, they stir up clouds.
When it blows out mist, it hides its form when it is small; when it rises, it soars in the universe, and when it is hidden, it lurks within the waves. You see, the dragon rides on time to change, just like a man who has his ambition and can travel across the world. This man should also do the same when he is alive.
Only those who can bend and stretch, and adapt to changes with the times, can become outstanding people."
Ma Sanzi couldn't understand such profound words, so he just kept blinking.
Seeing him like this, Ma Yu shook his head and said: "In short, just talk less and watch more. By my side, sooner or later you will be able to understand. I may still borrow you in the future."
As Ma Yu spoke, he carefully sealed the letter and handed it to Ma San. He repeatedly warned: "Send it without delay."
Ma San had no choice but to pick up the letter and hurried away.
Spring begins in the nineteenth year of Yongle.
This early spring exam attracted everyone's attention.
After the readers suffered a huge blow this time, they finally...encountered something that deserves the attention of all readers and does not worry them.
Juren from all over the country have already gathered in Nanjing.
Immediately afterwards, the imperial examination was held every three years.
Zhu Di showed great interest in this imperial examination.
He knows very well the principle of having a big stick in one hand and sweet dates in the other.
Nowadays, the world is full of people, except for Zhili, no matter they are squires whose parents are local officials, these people are still the power to stabilize the world. If you just press their heads and beat them hard, no one can stand it. Once these people go crazy,
If he simply broke the pot, although it would be nothing to Zhu Di to quell the rebellions in various places, the turmoil it would cause in the world and the displacement of countless people were what Zhu Di did not want to see.
Nowadays, the new policy implemented by Taiping Prefecture has nothing to do with all provinces and counties in the world. In this case, then we should take advantage of the imperial examination to express our respect for scholars. Feed them a sweet date first, and then strike hard to beat them to the top.
The art of emperor.
Therefore, Zhu Di attached great importance to this imperial examination. He ordered Xia Yuanji, the Minister of Household Affairs, to take charge of the examination. He also asked several times about the preparations for the imperial examination, and issued an edict, ordering Ying Tianfu to take care of the candidates who came to Beijing.
After the examination, it was clear that the public discussion about the imperial examination had covered up the previous affairs of Taiping Mansion going to sea.
This is actually understandable, after all, the imperial examination determines the fate of countless people. High school students will become ministers who will govern the world in the future, not to mention... there are many anecdotes from many scholars, and there is a lot of room for discussion.
Zhang Anshi, on the other hand, was happy that no one paid attention to him.
He has too many things to be busy with. It is not easy to make money from sea trade. The vassals need to contact each other, the foundation needs to be laid, the money from banks needs to be spread out, and the military and civilians need to spread the word about overseas affairs.
benefit.
There are too many stereotypes that need to be slowly resolved, and there are too many obstacles that need to be overcome.
Not to mention anything else, it is a problem simply to use river boats traveling in the river to transfer goods after sea ships dock at Songjiang Estuary.
Songjiang Prefecture also carried out the New Deal, but it was far less enlightened than Taiping Prefecture.
With no other choice, Zhang Anshi had no choice but to plead with the court to set aside a piece of land at Songjiangkou as a port and place it under the jurisdiction of Taiping Prefecture.
The only thing that made Zhang Anshi gratified was the preparation for the establishment of the customs.
Yu Qian is a very methodical person, not to mention that after being exposed to a large number of official documents in the Prince's Mansion, he has long been familiar with the operation of the Taiping Mansion.
Although he is young, he has his own way of doing things, and he doesn't like Zhang Anshi or others to dictate, but he only does things according to his own ideas.
For Zhang Anshi, this is actually a good thing. Customs issues do not need to be modified at all, they just need to be handled according to the regulations.
More importantly, he can also worry less and have more time to be busy with other things.
After the beginning of spring, Zhu Di summoned Zhang Anshi to see him.
When Zhang Anshi arrived at Wenlou, he realized that today was the day when the results would be released.
Zhang Anshi was one of the few people who was not very enthusiastic about the examination.
This is a matter for scholars, and it seems to have nothing to do with him.
On the other hand, Xia Yuanji, with his face glowing red, presented the list to Zhu Di. Zhu Di took a look at it and said, "This time, he is from the north?"
Zhu Di looked very surprised.
All the ministers were also astonished, especially Hu Guang. He had always... been a candidate from Jiangxi. He had rounded out the top three candidates in both the joint examination and the imperial examination. It would be an accident if one of the top three was not a scholar from Jiangxi.
But who would have expected that this time... a Northerner would actually appear.
Zhu Di said in horror: "Interesting, this Ma Yu is from Laizhou Prefecture. Do you have any impressions of this person?"
Everyone was silent, with confusion in their eyes.
Not many people have an impression of northern scholars.
Zhang Anshi vaguely remembers that the first number one scholar in the north in the Ming Dynasty seemed to be named Ma, but he didn't know if it was this person. However, according to his life history, logically speaking, he should be the number one scholar in high school in the next imperial examination, not in
Yongle 18th Year High School.
It seems that this time during the imperial examination, on the way to Beijing, I heard that my mother was ill, so I had to give up the imperial examination.
Could it be that history has changed? After Zhang Anshi's many prescriptions came out, medicine has made great progress. Although his mother was sick, she was not seriously ill to the point of threatening her life, so...it was supposed to shine three years later.
People finally shine ahead of time.
"This man is very powerful. I never thought that a scholar from Shandong could be so powerful!" Zhu Di's whole face glowed red.
Due to the imbalance between the north and the south of the imperial examination, an anomaly suddenly appeared, which was undoubtedly a great good thing for Zhu Di.
………………
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