Chapter 170: Li Empress Dowager Returns Power, Fire in the Qianqing Palace

Wang Chonggu looked at Zhang Siwei and said, "For a big family like ours, if they kill from the outside, even His Majesty can't kill them all. Haven't you noticed? Even for the Gu family and Xu family who were raided, and the Lin family and Wu family right now, the Emperor only kills the head of the family and a bunch of servants and family members. The rest are exiled to the frontier. After a few years, when the wind blows over, they will all come back."

"Even during the Jingnan campaign, the families of the Jianwen court officials who had been executed and displayed were pardoned during the Renzong period. Those who had become official slaves were released as commoners and their fields were returned."

"A centipede dies but does not fall—that is the principle. Even the Fang Xiaoru who was rumored to have been executed to the tenth generation—isn't his family still thriving?"

During the Wanli period, there were constant rumors about the injustice of Fang Xiaoru. The court checked the list of those exiled back then, and there were more than 1,300 descendants of the Ninghai Fang family in Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian, Sichuan, and Guangdong.

If Fang Xiaoru had really been executed to the tenth generation, where would so many clansmen have come from?

During the Jiajing period, Yu Bin from Songjiang claimed to be a descendant of Fang Xiaoru and cried injustice. Some scholar-officials compiled the *Records of Returning to the Ancestors* for Yu Bin to stir up public opinion. Later, the Ninghai Fang family, which was Fang Xiaoru's Ninghai Fang family, sued the government, and it was found that Yu Bin was an impostor, which ended the disturbance.

The saying that Fang Xiaoru was executed to the tenth generation was simply a miscarriage of justice deliberately manufactured by some literati in the Southern Yamen to resist the court.

Wang Chonggu said very sincerely, "How can a big family die? Only by suicide and self-destruction. If you do evil, you cannot live. If you make yourself hated by gods and men, and cause heaven's anger and people's resentment, if you don't die, who will?"

"That's not the case." Zhang Siwei immediately said, "In the eighth year of Jiajing, the fields of the Zhang Empress's father and brother, totaling one million mu, were seized! Isn't this robbery?"

Wang Chonggu held up a finger and said loudly, "One million mu of fields! One million mu of fields! One million mu of fields!"

"By what right did the father and brother of the Xiaozong Emperor's Empress Zhang occupy one million mu of fields! Xu Jie was greedy enough, and he only occupied four hundred and twenty thousand mu! The Zhang family occupied more than one million mu!"

"Just because their daughter married the Emperor? That year, a total of thirty thousand qing of land was found to be occupied in the eight prefectures of the capital, and their family occupied ten thousand qing! The three Duke mansions of Dingguo, Yingguo, and Chengguo combined only occupied twenty thousand qing, and the Zhang family was found to have ten thousand qing!"

"The current Holy Mother's family only has four thousand mu of land! Look, is there anyone in the court who is dealing with the Marquis of Wuqing, Li Wei? Li Wei wanted four thousand taels of silver to repair his house, and the Empress Dowager insisted on giving it. The court also thought of a way to go through the Ministry of Works' account, with the Ministry of Revenue paying. The Zhang Empress's father and brother, after the Shizong Emperor entered the capital, actually still wanted to be as rampant as they were during the Hongzhi and Zhengde periods!"

"Is the court unbenevolent, or are the powerful households unrighteous?"

If one understands a little about the evil deeds of the Zhang family's father and brother during the Xiaozong period, and then compares them with the current Holy Mother Li Empress Dowager's family, one will find the difference. The Marquis of Wuqing, Li Wei, made a fuss for more than half a year for four thousand taels of silver.

The Zhang family's father and brother directly occupied one million mu of fields.

Zhang Siwei and Wang Chonggu had already reached a point where they couldn't agree on anything.

"Uncle, forget it, let's not talk about this. How is your wool official factory doing?" Zhang Siwei stopped talking about court affairs. It was normal to have differences. Continuing to argue around differences would only lose the affection between relatives. Zhang Siwei intended to talk about a common topic: making money.

Wang Chonggu asked suspiciously, "Why are you asking about this?"

"Well, let's make money together," Zhang Siwei said with a smile. "Can I ask for a copy of the *Yongding Wool Official Factory Records*? I want to start a wool factory myself."

"You can." Wang Chonggu agreed very readily. If Zhang Siwei was only interested in money, Wang Chonggu would still recognize this nephew. After all, he was his own nephew. But if Zhang Siwei was not interested in money all day long and engaged in things that would lead to the execution of nine generations, Wang Chonggu couldn't recognize him.

Whether the *Wool Official Factory Records* could be passed on, Wang Chonggu had specifically asked His Majesty. His Majesty's answer was very clear: it could be. Originally, it was a trick of "sheep eating horses, sheep eating people." There was only so much water and grass; if there were more sheep, there would be fewer horses.

Whether it was Altan Khan or Tuman Khan, they would lose the most terrifying mobility on the battlefield.

The wool business—the larger the scale, the better. The larger the scale, the weaker the grassland. Zhu Yijun had no military talent, but he had economic talent. He would engage in economic warfare to weaken the enemy's strength and make Qi Shuai's attacks easier.

Wang Chonggu ordered someone to bring a palace-engraved edition of the *Official Factory Records*. This was a boutique product from the Three Classics Factory. The content included all the additions of the official factory. The *Official Factory Records* could be purchased directly at the Imperial Manor, but the price was relatively expensive—3,000 taels per set.

"So troublesome." Zhang Siwei flipped through it for a few pages and felt dizzy. He didn't expect that even washing wool could be so complicated.

Wang Chonggu sneered and said, "You want to make money but complain about the trouble."

Zhang Siwei left satisfied with the book, and Wang Qian walked out from behind the screen again and said in a low voice, "Father, does he really want to make money?"

"He can't make this money," Wang Chonggu shook his head. "This business looks like brocade and flowers, but the wind is stronger, the fish is more expensive, and the profit is thicker, the harder it is. In reality, it is like cooking oil on a raging fire. Zhang Siwei—he can't do it."

"Son, remember this. Why does Zhang Siwei think about problems like this? Rather than saying he is bad, it is better to say he is incompetent. Am I not bad? But I can get things done. If Zhang Siwei could understand the wool business, he could be considered a capable person. Does a capable person need flowery words and glib tongue?"

"He should have started vigorously long ago. If he succeeded, he would have shut everyone's mouth, just like the Senior Grand Secretary. The Examination Law is so difficult, didn't he still get it done?"

"A person who is neither ambitious nor persevering—if he can get things done, then the sun must be rising from the west."

"Your father is different. Your father is a person who is not ambitious but persevering. I have no ambition to care about the world; I just want to make money, and I can get things done, such as making money."

Wang Qian shook his head and said, "But His Majesty and the Senior Grand Secretary said that Father handled affairs effectively. In the Northwest, pacifying the people and grazing has merit. Last year, His Majesty even issued an imperial decree at the Great Court Meeting in the Huangji Hall, adding the title of 'Junior Guardian of the Heir Apparent' to Father in front of everyone."

Wang Chonggu thought about it and said

"Father is right." Wang Qian categorized his own thoughts; he didn't actually have the grand ambition of caring for the world, but he did have perseverance. He was determined to buy off those around Zhang Siwei, and the moment Zhang Siwei intended to commit a crime worthy of extermination of the nine clans, he would begin his move.

Like father, like son.

Both father and son were men who lacked grand ambitions but possessed perseverance; they had no concern for the world in their hearts at all—they were simply out to make money.

Wang Chonggu shook his head again and said to Wang Qian, "Why do I say Zhang Siwei is stupid and incompetent?"

"Look at the compilation of the 'Collected Statutes of the Great Ming' this time; he didn't even try to find a way to snag a position as a deputy director, letting Ma Ziqiang snatch it away instead. Wouldn't you say he's stupid and incompetent? Such a great merit, just like when he re-edited and proofread the 'Yongle Encyclopedia' back then."

Compiling the "Collected Statutes of the Great Ming" was absolutely a great achievement. Zhang Siwei was indeed not a partisan of Zhang Juzheng, but if Zhang Siwei had pulled some strings, even if he couldn't get a position as director or deputy director, getting a post as a compiler would still have been a credential.

Yet Zhang Siwei didn't even manage to snag a position as a compiler.

The young Emperor of Great Ming, Zhu Yijun, was supervising the work; he was installing lightning rods for the Imperial City. This thing wasn't considered novel; as early as the Han Dynasty, the tops of palaces would be installed with a copper tile in the shape of a fish tail.

And the "five ridges and six beasts" of the Great Ming Imperial Palace all had a metal tongue extending toward the sky, with the root of the tongue connected to an iron wire extending underground, used for lightning protection.

However, this iron wire wasn't painted, so occasionally there would be electric shocks and fires. Moreover, the tongues were too small, easily causing side-flash phenomena. The new lightning rods were three-foot-long iron rods, using copper wire soaked in wax and painted as the lead wire to conduct into the ground.

Zhu Yijun also conducted a very interesting experiment: the lightning-strike magnet creation method. It utilized the characteristic that the Great Ming Imperial Palace was on high ground and easily attracted lightning, wrapping enameled wire around iron blocks multiple times to generate a magnetic field, thereby creating magnets.

In order to keep the resistance as low as possible, Zhu Yijun chose to specifically conduct a set of control experiments: one set using silver wire, one using gold wire, and one using copper wire to attempt production.

The Imperial Palace was Zhu Yijun's testing ground.

Zhu Yijun was mainly doing it to attract lightning; as for creating magnets, that was just incidental. The motivation for the magnetization experiment was mainly to select quartz ore.

The glass fired in the Great Ming sometimes carried a strong green color, turning from glass into green glazed ware. This was because it contained iron-bearing byproducts. The craftsmen responsible for firing glass in the Great Ming had already discovered that the green color was related to iron. The colorless glass supplied to the Imperial Palace was selected using magnets, but the magnetic force wasn't strong enough, and it was easy to demagnetize.

The process for firing glass in the Great Ming was: crushing, impurity removal, grading, scrubbing, and magnetic separation. However, some weakly magnetic iron could not be removed, so strong magnets had to be used.

Regarding the green tint in the glass, the method chosen by the Great Ming craftsmen was simple and crude: all optical instrument glass used in the palace was fired after natural crystal was directly crushed and magnetically separated.

The few pieces of glass used by His Majesty and the Imperial Observatory were fired directly from crystal. In this day and age, natural crystal was a precious gemstone. To let the Emperor see clearly, they used crystal directly—this was the supreme power an emperor possessed during the Wanli era. Theoretically, everyone in the world was serving Zhu Yijun alone.

Of course, that was only theoretically, just like the theory that the Emperor was the highest ruler of the known world.

Zhu Yijun did not prohibit this behavior, but likewise, he also wanted to use lightning to magnetize for further magnetic separation.

The demand for magnets was imminent. The great inventor Zhu Yijun began, in the fourth month of the fourth year of Wanli, to steal the power of the Thunder God to manufacture magnets.

Manufacturing magnets required high-voltage direct current, coils with extremely low resistance, and cast iron alloy blocks—copper-iron alloys.

And Zhu Yijun lacked none of these. For extremely low resistance, Zhu Yijun directly used gold and silver wire. If copper wire was sufficient, the finger-thick gold and silver wire would also have to be recovered; that was all money.

As for things like resistance, current, and voltage, Zhu Yijun didn't consider them at all. He was about to borrow the power of the Thunder God to create strong magnets; did he still need to calculate these?

The fourth month of the Great Ming had already entered early summer, and thunderstorms were increasing. If the experiment succeeded, the Great Ming's magnet production base would be selected in Leizhou, Guangdong, where thunderstorms were extremely frequent. The reason Leizhou was called Leizhou was precisely because of the frequent thunder.

Zhu Yijun supervised the Great Ming palace eunuchs as they climbed up and down, installing all the lightning rods and completing the construction of the lightning-attracting towers. Everything was ready; they only lacked a thunderstorm.

These lightning rods extending toward the sky were not exquisite. Zhang Hong felt they lacked imperial dignity and wanted to decorate them, but Zhu Yijun rejected Zhang Hong's proposal in the name of frugality. Decorate what? Why spend that money? It was fine just like this.

When the young Emperor returned to the Qianqing Palace with a group of little followers, he saw some palace servants busy frequently, moving piles of things out of the palace. Zhu Yijun was stunned, then hurriedly walked before Empress Dowager Li and Empress Dowager Chen.

"Greetings to Mother and Mother-in-law. What is this for?" Zhu Yijun asked suspiciously.

Empress Dowager Li smiled and said, "Moving the palace."

"Some time ago, the court officials began to submit memorials, saying, 'Emperor, your wisdom is gradually unfolding, and it is not appropriate for this palace to continue living in the Qianqing Palace to read memorials.' They thought I enjoyed reading those memorials! Since they brought it up, if I don't move, they will nag endlessly. The Cining Palace has been tidied up; I am moving there to live."

"My son will only be eating alone from now on."

"I will no longer be able to watch over the Emperor's daily life morning and night. My son must be extremely cautious in his actions. This Zhang Hong is not bad; he can be considered a close person. It's just that this Qianqing Palace is a bit desolate; only those six or seven people are serving back and forth."

"The Master was personally entrusted by the late Emperor. His advice morning and night fulfills the friendship of the late Emperor's leaning on the table. My son must listen well to his teachings. Our Great Ming truly cannot afford any more turmoil."

Empress Dowager Li and Empress Dowager Chen were extremely relaxed.

In their view, the state was steady and improving. The Emperor was wise and martial, the scholars were persevering, the Cabinet had Zhang Juzheng and Lu Diaoyang, and the court officials were generally usable. Zhang Han had left the court, Ma Ziqiang had replaced Wan Shihe as Minister of Rites, and most court discussions were handled through consultation. The Great Ming Emperor also had exclusive governing power; the court officials were trained by the Emperor to the point they couldn't lift their heads. The Great Ming army was also constantly winning battles, and the national treasury was beginning to be replenished. Even the memorials asking the Emperor to practice frugality had decreased significantly.

It was also time. The Emperor was growing up; if she stayed in the Qianqing Palace any longer, she was afraid he would curse her, this Empress Dowager Li, as an evil empress.

Empress Dowager Li truly did not covet power. Once the court officials spoke, Empress Dowager Li immediately had the thought. The Cining Palace had been tidied up for four months and was finally ready. Even Prince Lu, Zhu Yiliu, would go to the Cining Palace to live until he was thirteen or fourteen.

Back then, Zhang Juzheng asked Empress Dowager Li to go to the Qianqing Palace mainly to keep an eye on the young Emperor's studies.

"Wasn't it said that you would move out after the grand wedding?" Zhu Yijun had of course seen those memorials; Zhang Juzheng had attached a blank slip, and Zhu Yijun had directly drawn an 'X' on it.

But after Empress Dowager Li saw it, she planned to return power. Compared to those empress dowagers and emperors in history who turned into enemies as mother and son because of power, Empress Dowager Li directly letting go appeared extremely commendable.

For example, Emperor Song Renzong did not begin to rule personally until Empress Dowager Liu passed away at the age of twenty-four. After ruling personally, Song Renzong realized that the person he had called his biological mother for more than twenty years was not his biological mother at all—his biological mother was Consort Li Chen.

Song Renzong wailed and was devastated, even sending troops to surround the residence of Empress Dowager Liu's family, but in the end, he did not act and could only let it go.

In contrast, Empress Dowager Li directly left behind a light sentence about listening well to the Master's words and prepared to leave the core of power.

Empress Dowager Li was truly a bit weary of court politics. She didn't understand it but had to understand it. The young Emperor chattered all day about those principles of governing the country. Some Empress Dowager Li could understand, but some she truly couldn't quite grasp. It was fortunate that the young Emperor was sensible, so she could just hand it over to the young Emperor.

"Mother, if I stay any longer, I'm afraid all kinds of messy talk will spread everywhere. First there was He Xinyin, then Zeng Guang, and now another Yu Maoxue has popped up. Mother is going back to the Cining Palace to enjoy a peaceful life." Empress Dowager Li waved her hand, looked left and right, and whispered, "Son, Mother has left a maid for you. This Wang Yaozhuo is beautiful in appearance, her figure is also not bad, and the key is that her background is clean. Serving close by, the most important thing is a clean background."

"What about the old servants from the Prince Yu's mansion? That Zhang Qiuju wasn't eating inside and pushing outside!"

"A clean background is good. She doesn't even have any relatives of her own, and she is devoted to my son."

Empress Dowager Li liked Wang Yaozhuo for three reasons: she was good-looking, good for childbearing, and had a clean background. Being all alone made her most suitable to accompany the Emperor. Other things like being sensible, intelligent, and clever were all bonus points.

As for being of humble status and from a commoner background, Empress Dowager Li herself was from a commoner background. She had fled famine and entered the capital. When they were destitute, Empress Dowager Li's biological father, Li Wei, directly sent Empress Dowager Li to Prince Yu's mansion to be a maid. Calling it sending was actually selling.

Zhu Yijun did not try to persuade her too much and said, "My son will go to see Mother."

"Mm-hmm, Mother is leaving." Empress Dowager Li saw that the Emperor understood her meaning as a mother. Her meaning was very clear: many children mean many blessings.

Empress Dowager Li and Empress Dowager Chen waved their hands, got into their palanquins, and headed toward the Cining Palace.

One had to pay respects on the first and fifteenth of the month; for other times, it wasn't a long way if one wanted to visit.

Zhu Yijun looked at Wang Yaozhuo, sized her up, and revealed a gentle smile, saying, "From now on, you will live in the Qianqing Palace. You will also go to the Inner Study to read, and also go to the Imperial Uncle's place to learn music theory."

"This servant obeys the decree." Wang Yaozhuo bowed and accepted the order. She had no dissatisfaction with Empress Dowager Li's arrangement; Wang Yaozhuo had no thoughts of opposition.

From the day Empress Dowager Li called her to her side, Wang Yaozhuo had known her fate. She had no dissatisfaction, and was even grateful.

His Majesty the Emperor had the Embroidered Uniform Guard investigate the Lu family of Shanzhou to avenge her father. She had long since made up her mind to repay the imperial grace.

And toward the Emperor in front of her, Wang Yaozhuo had even less dissatisfaction. Even setting aside the Emperor's status, the young Emperor himself was a very reliable person. Where else would a born noble be beaten by a sparring partner every day? Of course, this noble was mostly beating others.

It was just that Wang Yaozhuo always felt that the Emperor in front of her was wickedly clever; one turn of his eyeballs and he had an idea. She was afraid she wouldn't be able to avoid being bullied in the future.

"Do we start the 'tongfang' today?" Wang Yaozhuo asked, looking slightly confused. 'Tongfang' was a major event in life.

Zhu Yijun looked at Wang Yaozhuo and said with a smile, "You? Little bean sprout, keep growing. I am a practitioner of martial arts! You still can't withstand the assault."

The thirteen-year-old young Emperor's body was still in the developmental stage. Zhu Yijun's martial arts had progressed relatively quickly recently. Puberty would of course bring some impulses, but it wasn't about restraint; it was mainly for development.

Although Wang Yaozhuo had a good foundation, she still needed to grow some more. Like a bean sprout, Zhu Yijun wasn't a Western priest who liked this sort of thing.

Zhu Yijun waited until the middle of the fourth month before he finally waited for the violent storm to arrive.

On the thirteenth day of the fourth month, at high noon, cumulonimbus clouds covered the sun, and high noon became as dim as night. From time to time, lightning flashed and spread within the clouds, with rumbling sounds in bursts. Violent winds rolled, and the dark, heavy clouds pressed the entire sky extremely low. A rainstorm could arrive at any moment.

Zhu Yijun had repeatedly issued decrees for all palace eunuchs to stay away from the lightning-attracting towers on rainy days. Whoever didn't listen to the decree and got struck by lightning would have to consider themselves unlucky.

The lightning-attracting tower was over thirty zhang high, almost as high as the glazed pagoda of the Great Gratitude Temple, extending straight toward the sky.

Zhu Yijun stood by the window, letting the violent wind carry the cool air, blowing the curtains until they rattled.

"Shall I close the window?" Zhang Hong asked in a low voice for His Majesty's opinion.

Zhu Yijun shook his head and said, "No need."

He had just finished speaking, and before his voice had even fallen, a bolt of lightning that tore half the sky flashed rapidly across the firmament, branching out like a spider web and illuminating the entire sky. The sound of the lightning tearing through the firmament was like the sound of tearing silk.

Even the carbonized black scar on the top of the Jianji Hall was faintly visible in the lightning. That was the scar left by being struck by lightning in the fourth year of Longqing. That year, court officials vied to submit memorials, urging the Longqing Emperor to practice frugality.

The lightning followed the firmament toward the lightning-attracting tower. The electric light struck the top of the tower, flowed down, and flowed toward the ground.

It wasn't the crackling, spark-filled appearance Zhu Yijun had imagined; it just struck the top of the tower, and then the rumbling sound of thunder arrived.

The lightning-attracting tower was working normally.

A torrential rain poured down. This heavy rain lasted for only half an hour before it slowly diminished and then began to clear. When the sky completely cleared, Zhu Yijun took Zhang Hong and the others to inspect whether his magnets had been successfully manufactured.

"Your Majesty, it seems to have succeeded, but it also seems to have failed." On the cleared afternoon, Zhang Hong opened the wooden box, unwound the wrapped copper wire, and took out an iron sheet. The iron sheet was attracted, and Zhang Hong picked at it, and it came off.

Then he opened the gold and silver wires, and the results were all about the same.

This iron block had magnetism, but it was only at the level of a refrigerator magnet.

After cumbersome testing, Zhu Yijun announced that although magnetization was successful, the scientific exploration failed; strong magnets were not obtained.

Practice proved that lightning could indeed magnetize, but the strength of a permanent magnet was still related to the material.

Failure is the mother of success. Zhu Yijun didn't intend to succeed in one go. He actually just wanted to prove one thing: that lightning was not the wrath of Heaven and Man. What he wanted to break was the rhetoric of the interaction between Heaven and Man.

From the guest star since the sixth year of Longqing to the recent fire meteor in Sichuan—one red and one green—Zhu Yijun had been made somewhat irritable by this whole set of things. The reason for building this lightning-attracting tower to attract lightning was that magnetizing was just incidental, just a small experiment. The most important thing was to break this whole game of the interaction between Heaven and Man.

Things that are not understood are the infinite principles of all things that the Great Ming hasn't figured out yet, not the so-called wrath and warning of Heaven and Man.

Successfully attracting lightning was the purpose of this lightning-attracting tower. Thunder, meteors, solar eclipses, lunar eclipses, and guest stars were all natural phenomena, not things to be pushed off as the wrath and warning of Heaven and Man.

There were also shackles on the Emperor, and this lightning-attracting tower was the sharp blade he used to break those shackles.

Zhu Yijun posted a public notice of his research and findings.

While Zhu Yijun was busy fussing with the lightning-attracting tower, Zhang Siwei was busy fussing with the woolen mill. He failed.

His failure had nothing to do with Wang Qian. This time Wang Qian didn't block Zhang Siwei, nor did he bribe anyone; it was just that Zhang Siwei himself didn't succeed.

The "Records of the Yongding Woolen Official Mill" were sold in the Imperial Manor. It wasn't just Zhang Siwei exploring it alone, but many merchants who smelled the scent came over, and then on the banks of the Yongdinghe, over a dozen workshops sprang up within a few days.

The demand was indeed there. The Great Ming woolen official mill mainly supplied military needs, leaving only some scraps for the common people. The merchants among the common people could be said to be unable to find a single piece of material. The imperial court had directly made the craftsmanship public; logically speaking, they should have been able to start immediately.

Copying the gourd to draw the ladle could also achieve it, but soon, the merchants discovered that this woolen business wasn't so easy to do. In the end, only one woolen mill called Yongsheng Hao remained, directly announcing success. And this proprietor was extremely mysterious, leaving behind not much news.

Wang Chonggu, however, knew that the proprietor of the only successful one on the banks of the Yongdinghe was surnamed Li—the Li of Marquis Wuqing, Li Wei. But in fact, the true owner was the Emperor; that was simply an Imperial Manor. This Yongsheng Hao woolen mill was simply a gift from the Emperor to Empress Dowager Li. Empress Dowager Li returning power to the Son of Heaven so easily exceeded Wang Chonggu's expectations.

Clearly His Majesty had already rejected the proposal to move the palace, yet the Empress Dowager left on her own. This made the court officials who had already prepared to take sides extremely disappointed.

How could she return power so lightly?

Fight! It would be best if they fought like Empress Dowager Zhang and Emperor Shizong back then; only then would it be lively.

This woolen mill wasn't large, with a scale only one-tenth that of the official mill, earning at most twenty or thirty thousand taels of silver a year, but this money was clearly for Empress Dowager Li to spend herself.

How did Wang Chonggu know such a secret matter? Because His Majesty told him directly, and this Yongsheng Hao woolen mill was also being managed by him.

Wang Chonggu felt that the Emperor's business deal wasn't a loss, and was even a huge profit. Even if the entire woolen official mill were packaged and given to Empress Dowager Li, it wouldn't necessarily be a loss for the young Emperor.

The turmoil caused by the tearing of top-level power was extremely dangerous, and a violent turmoil that should have affected the entire Great Ming didn't even ignite a spark before it returned to calm.

Zhang Siwei's business failure was within reason.

An official mill must be close to a water source, and land by the water was a huge sum of money. Construction was another huge sum of money, and besides construction, there was hiring labor, which was another huge sum of money. This filtered out a portion of people.

If it were just money, that would be fine, but one also had to open up the supply of raw materials, such as wool washed with fermented gold liquid, white clay, imperial secret formula wood ash crystals, and so on. These things weren't so easy to open up. Even if the imperial court had already stated that they would be treated equally, the supply of white clay wasn't even enough for the expansion of the official mill, so where could one purchase it?

Without the support of the imperial court's policies, even if Wang Chonggu had heaven-defying abilities, the official mill couldn't have reached such a scale.

Even if the supply of raw materials was opened up, there was still a huge difficulty, and that was labor. Whether it was corvée labor or weavers, when the imperial court's official mill was expanding, one had to offer a higher price than the official mill to be able to hire labor. This was another huge investment.

Wang Chonggu took the opportunity to expand the scale of the official mill and brought all these failed businesses under his own name. It wasn't robbery, but a very reasonable price. In matters of commercial competition, how could one say Wang Chonggu was kicking a man when he was down?

What surprised Wang Chonggu somewhat was that a whole bunch of small handicraft workshops were born around the Yongding official mill. What these handicraft workshops did wasn't woolen, but supply. The common people of the Great Ming were very hardworking. If the official mill accumulated wool, it could be handed over to them to wash, and the official mill's woolen could also be handed over to them to be made into ready-made clothing. The construction of the official mill could hire corvée labor.

Everything was full of vitality.

Wang Chonggu returned home when the moon was already over the willow trees. He hummed a Shanxi ditty, his mood extremely good. The expansion speed of the woolen mill far exceeded expectations. He planned to discuss it properly with His Majesty at the end of the year, changing the ten percent dividend ratio into a fixed dividend of one hundred thousand taels. Any more and he was afraid the silver would cost him his life; too much silver was also a hot potato.

He washed up and came to the study to prepare for tomorrow's court discussion.

When Wang Qian rushed into the study, he tripped over the threshold upon entering and fell heavily to the ground. Even so, Wang Qian couldn't care less whether he was injured. His face was full of lingering fear, his whole body was trembling, and he said with extreme terror, "Father! News came from the palace that the Qianqing Palace is on fire!"

"Look, you're still young. Last time, news came from the palace that His Majesty had passed away! Grand Preceptor Yang was so scared he fainted, but His Majesty appeared in the Wenhua Hall the next day. That Eunuch Feng in the palace is always spreading fake news. This is already the fourth year; haven't you gotten tired of playing this ghost trick yet?" Wang Chonggu didn't believe this kind of news at all; he had already been fooled once.

Wang Qian didn't stand up, nor did he lie flat, but in a curled-up posture, he said tremblingly, "It's true. In the direction of the palace, flames are shooting into the sky!"

Wang Chonggu bolted out of the study, looked toward the direction of the Imperial Palace, and his whole body began to shake, then he began to fly into a rage. He immediately said to his son, "Go quickly to find out the news and see if His Majesty is alright!"

Empress Dowager Li's return of power was also described lightly in history, but if you look at the party strife during the Zhengde and early Jiajing years, the messy things caused by Empress Dowager Zhang, who practiced monogamy, you will know that the tearing of the Great Ming's top-level power would indeed cause extremely serious party strife and evil consequences. Please vote for monthly tickets, Awoo!!!!!

(End of chapter)