Chapter 419: Fast Sailing Ship

The Great Ming's artisan registry had room for upward mobility.

For example, during the Xuande period, the stonemason Lu Xiang, relying on his skill in creating landscapes with stones the size of a square inch, allowed the Great Ming's garden technology to develop rapidly, and he eventually became the Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of Industry. His son, Lu Hua, worked as an interpreter in the Four Barbarian Halls and also secured a stable job.

For example, the chief engineer Kuai Xiang, who supervised the construction of the Great Ming capital's northern yamen during the Yongle period, eventually reached the position of Minister of Industry.

In April of the thirty-sixth year of Jiajing, a fire broke out in the central axis of the imperial palace. The carpenter Xu Gao, under an extremely limited budget, completed the reconstruction of the central axis and built the Yongshou Palace, eventually becoming the Great Ming's Minister of Industry.

Give the Great Ming craftsmen a chance, and the Great Ming artisans would really give the Emperor countless miracles.

During the Yongle period, based on the needs of the voyages to the Western Ocean, the Great Ming improved the treatment of shipwrights. The Great Ming artisans manufactured sea giants like the "Fuchuan" (Treasure Ship), which shook the Southern and Western Oceans (Indian Ocean).

And Zhu Yijun gave the Great Ming craftsmen a chance. The surging power of the Great Ming's opening of the sea was the Great Ming's "official factory group manufacturing." This was the core of the Great Ming's opening of the sea, and the key to the Great Ming maintaining commodity advantages and then using high value-added products for plunder.

In official factory group manufacturing, the treatment of the artisans themselves was second only to the soldiers of the Beijing Garrison. Moreover, there were all kinds of treatments: opening silver, New Year silver, all available every year, as well as all kinds of rice, flour, grain, and oil. And the children of the artisans could study in the group manufacturing schools, and even women could study, read, and learn arithmetic in the weaving academy's girls' schools.

Throw a peach, return a plum.

And today, Wang Daokun entered the capital, and Zhu Yijun received an auspicious sign.

Wang Daokun was an official from outside the capital entering the court. He was not promoted from the capital. For the capital officials, he was an outsider. He did indeed leave the capital to go to Songjiang to be a governor, but once he left the capital, he became an outside official. Moreover, his identity was multiple. In terms of origin, he should be the Zhe Party, but because he had been running around for Hu Zongxian's grievances for many years, he defected to the Zhang Party. And opening the sea was the Emperor's arbitrary decision, so he also belonged to the Emperor's Party.

Coming out to mix requires a background and also requires power. Wan Shihe, who could be a "ten-thousand-gold oil," was because he was an extremely pure Emperor's Party. And Wang Daokun, this kind of complex background, had a very, very unrefined name: "Three-Surname Slave."

Such a complex identity made him walk on thin ice.

So he needed a credit to sit firmly in his position, simplify his complex background, and plot further progress.

"Your Majesty, please look." Wang Daokun slowly pulled open the red silk cloth. What was covered by the red silk cloth was not an assembled model, but a pile of parts.

Wang Daokun first took out the hollow steel mainmast, the pure steel keel, and the ship beams, and said: "The bumps at sea exceeded the limit of wooden ships, especially in the case of high speed. When the Great Ming's hydrofoil sailing ship was first trial-produced, we discovered that the bumps of the ship during high-speed sailing would cause the ship to deform or even disintegrate."

"Water is extremely soft, but in the case of extremely fast speed, it becomes as hard as rock. Striking a stone with an egg is overestimating one's strength, but if you strike a stone with an extremely fast egg, the stone will also shatter."

Force is mutual. The bullet head fired by the Great Ming's firearm is a lead pellet, which will make a big hole even if it hits a rock.

The high-speed sailing of the Great Ming's hydrofoil sailing ship turned water from soft to hard as rock. How to solve this problem? The Great Ming craftsmen had already given a solution, and that was steel—not iron, but steel. The masts, keels, ship beams, and ship bodies would all be wrapped in a layer of steel to prevent disintegration.

The keel ship beams held by Wang Daokun were a bit like fish bones, with ship beams extending from the keel one by one. The new ship Wang Daokun spoke of was a fast sailing ship manufactured by the Great Ming to adapt to the current maritime trade environment, and the structural strength of the ship had hard requirements.

Wang Daokun installed all the masts on the keel, and the prototype of a ship appeared. Then he picked up the ship body and said: "Our ship body is a double-layer design. The outer layer is beech wood to reduce weight, and the inner layer is a layer of steel plate to maintain the basic stability of the ship body and improve the ability to resist wind and waves."

The power of the sailing ship was still wind power. The keel ship beams and masts were made of hollow steel. So, for faster speed, wooden ship bodies were relatively reasonable. Everything was for greater cargo capacity, everything was for faster speed. Time is money, and speed represents greater profits.

Wang Daokun assembled the ship body, held up the model that had already taken the shape of a ship, pointed to the ship body, and said: "We canceled almost all the cabins above the deck and put them inside the ship. Above the deck, we only kept the captain's cabin. The entire ship body is a three-layer design. Because of the steel keel design, we no longer need ballast stones at the bottom. From bottom to top, there are three layers of ship cabins. Each layer can accommodate more than one million catties of cargo."

This kind of design was very, very bold. The simplification of everything above the deck came from the West's shipbuilding experience. The three-masted clipper ships and five-masted ocean-going ships all referred to this design. And the new ship shown by Wang Daokun went a step further, keeping only the captain's position.

Compared with putting cannons on the deck now, the cannons of the new ship were under the deck. There were cannon ports on the ship body of the three decks. When shooting was needed, the cover could be opened for design. Zhu Yijun listened with relish, asking about the wonders of many designs, and sighed repeatedly at the Great Ming craftsmen's whimsical and imaginative ideas.

As Wang Daokun gradually explained and assembled, a five-masted ship model with a very flamboyant style appeared in front of Zhu Yijun.

(Wandering Dragon—Five-Masted Clipper Fast Sailing Ship)

And the sails of this ship were no longer the Great Ming's traditional hard sails, but square sails—that is, each piece of the hard sail was cut into a separate sail surface. The entire cabin was covered by sails. The bow, stern, and both sides of the ship had different small sails, and the styling of the ship body was extremely elegant.

The length-to-width ratio of the Great Ming ship hull was constantly increasing, from the initial three-to-one to the current six-to-one. Its underwater shape was designed to be a resistance with less resistance. The overall center of gravity of the ship and the hollow bow made the ship easier to lift during sailing, which could ensure the sailing stability of the ship.

During high-speed sailing, the posture of the ship was that the ship body was almost sticking to the sea surface. The long, sharp ship hull curve was like a sharp pair of scissors cutting through the sea surface.

"The ship is thirty-three zhang long, three zhang eight chi one cun wide, and one zhang nine chi six cun deep. The freeboard of the ship is extremely low. When sailing at sea, you can almost only see the sail surface. The mainmast length is twenty-four zhang, which is three-quarters of the ship's length. The expected load is 3.4 million catties." Wang Daokun placed the assembled ship on the table.

Zhu Yijun stood up and came to the front of the ship. If it was as Wang Daokun said, it would only take three months to cross the Pacific Ocean. Then, starting from Songjiang Prefecture, passing through the Banda Sea, going directly to the Cape of Good Hope from south of Java, crossing the Atlantic Ocean, to the Strait of Magellan, then taking the equatorial ocean current to Luzon, and finally returning to Songjiang Prefecture, it would take about six months.

The expected load was 3.4 million catties. One Great Ming catty was 596 grams, so the load was about two thousand tons. A circumnavigation only took half a year. It was terrifying.

"How much does it cost?" Zhu Yijun looked at the ship and asked.

Wang Daokun knew the most critical part was coming. He said in a low voice: "Building such a ship costs 100,000 silver, which is about twice the price of the current five-masted ship."

In the eyes of ordinary people, His Majesty was stingy, but Wang Daokun had always been at the forefront of opening the sea. His Majesty's investment in opening the sea was extremely generous, but the cost of this ship was indeed too expensive—100,000 taels of silver, one-fifth of the Longqing Emperor's imperial mausoleum.

Zhu Yijun's brows wrinkled when he heard this. It wasn't that he couldn't bear to spend it, but this ship was still a big pie drawn by Wang Daokun. To eat this big pie, it would take at least 1.5 million silver.

From the blueprints to the real thing, this ship would take at least 1.5 million silver in research and development and improvement costs. The Great Ming's design had become gradually precise after the "degree-passing" (thorough understanding), and the Type D five-masted ocean-going ship cost the imperial court 720,000 silver from blueprints to launching, and this trial-production process took more than three years.

Zhu Yijun smiled and said: "If this were for sale, one ship would sell for 90,000 taels of gold. I think Felipe and Akbar would be very interested. Of course, I can't sell this thing to them even if they want to buy it."

One tael of gold is equal to about fourteen to sixteen taels of silver. This is the listed price in the Great Ming when materials are not abundant. A ship that occupies a commodity advantage, in the current background of the Age of Discovery, earning fourteen to sixteen times is not excessive.

In the century of humiliation, the whole world formed a consensus: advanced ships would impose substantial bans on the Qing Dynasty, and even the ships built by the Qing Dynasty itself would be restricted by various means, including but not limited to restricting raw material imports (teak), Qing-registered ships unable to obtain ship permits, unable to clear customs, unable to resupply and trade in colonial ports, purchasing and merging local shipyards in the Qing Dynasty to prevent the Qing Dynasty from free trade, etc., etc.

The Qing Dynasty's closed-door policy after the Opium War was a system of the Qing imperial court under the defense of Manchu and Han, and it was also a blockade of the world.

The new ship presented by Wang Daokun could not be sold to the whole world like the five-masted ship. This was not a question of whether to open it or not, but a question of national security and maritime rights. The five-masted ocean-going ship, in the final analysis, was still in the category of Western oared sailing ships—bloated, small cargo capacity, slow sailing, not easy to turn, not flexible enough, etc.

After the new ship appeared, the five-masted ocean-going ship became "Madam Niu." To this, Zhu Yijun could only say: "I have loved."

"How long?" Zhu Yijun asked.

Wang Daokun bowed and said: "Three years."

Zhu Yijun waved his hand and said: "I will give you 2 million silver. Build this thing for me in three years. I allow it to be a bit slower and have less cargo capacity, but I want to see this thing."

Zhu Yijun held the booklet in his hand and looked at it for a long time. Many of the data were most similar to the clipper ships in his impression, but the clipper ships were not as good as the thing in front of him in some aspects, especially the ship body strength.

"1 million silver is enough, enough." Wang Daokun said hurriedly. He hadn't even become the Minister of Industry yet, and he had already let His Majesty explode 2 million silver coins. He wasn't worried about messing up the errand. Since he dared to lift the model to the Wenhua Hall, he was confident. Cheating and fooling the Emperor was underestimating the bond of the nine clans.

It really didn't need that much silver. The purchasing power of the Great Ming's silver was already very, very strong now.

"2 million, paid from the inner treasury. Feng, does the inner treasury still have silver?" Zhu Yijun looked at Feng Bao. Spending money had to ask the big housekeeper how much was left in his own small treasury.

"Yes." Feng Bao answered His Majesty's question concisely. The inner treasury had about 4.72 million silver. 2 million was not enough to hurt the muscles and bones. Moreover, the imperial manor, the thick profits of opening the sea, and the sharing of customs duties from the Shipping Office were continuously injected into the inner treasury. By the end of the year, there would still be 5 million silver.

"I kowtow to thank the imperial grace." Wang Daokun performed the grand salute again. He knew that as long as he built this ship, his position as a gentleman would be stable, and entering the Cabinet would not be an unreachable dream. If you are an official, who doesn't want to climb up? If you don't want to make progress, what kind of official are you?

Zhu Yijun took out one year's military pay for the Beijing Garrison, one-fifth of one year's Great Ming military expenditure, to promote this matter. Being frugal was Zhu Yijun's persistence, but money that should be spent still had to be spent.

The number one wealthy young master in the capital was him, Zhu Yijun!

"Your Majesty, the national treasury can take out 1 million silver." Wang Guoguang said hurriedly when he heard this. The Ministry of Revenue had also understood one thing over the years: follow His Majesty, eat meat and drink soup. Don't even think about the Emperor's inner treasury trying to shake off the national treasury to make investments!

After there were results, building a ship, the Ministry of Revenue was afraid that it would have to give the inner treasury an extra 100,000 silver!

"These ministers are usually indifferent to fame and wealth, treating glory and wealth as passing clouds, calling money vulgar, and not bowing for five pecks of rice as noble. Now that they hear there is a chance to get rich, they immediately pounce on it? What is this called? This is called 'seeing money and opening eyes'!" Feng Bao sarcastically teased Wang Guoguang, and by the way, knocked Zhang Xueyan.

These two guys had slapped the table at His Majesty more than once. Slapping the table for investment in opening the sea, slapping the table for military expenditure—it was simply lawless. If he caught the opportunity, Feng Bao, this claw of the Emperor, would naturally bite twice.

"Your Majesty is the Son of Heaven of the Great Ming, how can you abandon the country?" Zhang Xueyan said loudly immediately. Face? How could face be more important than silver? The Ministry of Revenue without silver was disliked even by dogs. The Ministry of Revenue with silver—even the dogs passing by would be slapped twice, and no one dared to say anything!

Zhang Xueyan was responsible for auditing. When he encountered a chance to get rich, he naturally had to charge into battle. Such a good opportunity to be an original shareholder and shipowner, even if Feng Bao cursed to the sky, the Ministry of Revenue couldn't miss it. This big piece of meat, the new ship, the Ministry of Industry could eat it, the inner treasury could eat it, and the Ministry of Revenue had to eat it too!

"Then let the national treasury and the inner treasury split it in half." Zhu Yijun looked at Wang Guoguang. Wang Guoguang did not have a submissive heart!

If the inner treasury invested alone, all the profits would belong to the inner treasury.

It was a pity that the national treasury was becoming harder and harder to fool.

"Please name the ship, Your Majesty." Wang Daokun said submissively.

"Graceful as a startled swan, elegant as a wandering dragon. The first high-speed sailing ship will be called 'Wandering Dragon'." Zhu Yijun thought for a moment and gave a name, and it was a very serious name, not as casual as the "land duck." This was a major event of opening the sea, not a toy like a land-treading rail car.

This ship would definitely go down in history. Since it had to have a name, it was appropriate to be serious.

"This name! Good! Your Majesty is truly a sea of literature and ocean of learning. As the saying goes: 'The water country is tens of thousands of miles away, the horizon is vast and endless. Where does the seal boat go when it leaves? Sailing across the ocean as if on flat ground!' Wandering Dragon—this name is good!" After hearing this, Wan Shihe immediately sent four lines of flattery. In order to praise this name, he composed a poem on the spot.

Receiving the Emperor's name, this ship could be regarded as a seal boat named by the Emperor. The countries of the overseas barbarians on the ocean were tens of thousands of miles away, like the ends of the earth. After the seal boat named by His Majesty went to sea, what kind of performance would it have? Sailing across the ocean as if on flat ground.

This was a blessing and expectation for the Great Ming's opening of the sea.

The Great Ming court officials looked at Wan Shihe with disgust, ashamed to be with him. The Emperor gave a name, and he could flatter in various styles. He was truly a sycophantic minister. But it had to be said that Wan Shihe had never flattered the horse's leg. This was the great ability of the Minister of Rites.

Zhu Yijun waved his hand, signaling Wan Shihe to restrain himself. He asked Wang Daokun if there were any more models like this. If there was only one, then Zhu Yijun would collect it himself and not give it to Zhu Yiliu. If there were extras, giving one to Zhu Yiliu would not be a bad idea.

Wang Daokun was very submissive. He brought two models. Zhu Yijun gave one to Zhu Yiliu, which could be considered as fulfilling the friendship of the court officials who were arguing and making noise.

Guo Chaobin would leave in February. This was a matter that had been decided before. The affairs of the Ministry of Industry had to be handed over to Wang Daokun. The court session continued to unfold. The content of the court session was very much. The Great Ming Emperor and the court officials decided the direction of the empire, just like a fleet. A good captain could lead the fleet through danger and obtain rich profits.

What made Zhu Yijun particularly surprised was that seven of the thirteen ships that were lost in the direction of Ryukyu to Mexico had successfully returned and arrived at Songjiang Prefecture. Although there was not much cargo on the ships, these seven ships had broken into a vicious sea and captured a large number of crabs. These crabs were huge, with six-inch-long bodies, three pairs of super-long walking legs, and a pair of chelae. The body was purple-red, and the meat was extremely delicious.

The frozen crabs Zhu Yijun received were the only ones. He tasted one but didn't eat much, because frozen crabs were dead things. As an Emperor, he could only eat fresh ingredients. This was also part of the ritual. For the sake of food safety, he bestowed the remaining six to Zhang Juzheng, Wang Chonggu, and Tan Lun, and even Wan Shihe got one.

After the New Year, Zhu Yijun took Empress Wang out for an outing. It was called an outing, but Zhu Yijun went to Miyun to reclaim land, taking the officials of the Baoqi Division to personally engage in farming.

Reclaiming land was a very tiring thing. The land plot Zhu Yijun wanted to reclaim had no natives and no dense forests, so it wasn't too hard. If there were dense forests and natives, the difficulty of reclaiming land would be infinitely higher.

The first enemy Zhu Yijun had to face was withered grass. Last autumn, the wilderness had already been burned. With the spring warmth and flowers blooming, the temperature rose, the ice and snow in the fields melted, and the land became dry. Before the wild grass sprouted, he began to dig up the grass roots. The hoe, which was sharp at one end and wide at the other, was the tool for reclaiming land.

The grass roots of the wasteland were extremely developed. The long-term desolation caused the wasteland to be very porcelain-like. Every time he swung the hoe, he had to use force, and the price of using force was hitting a stone. In the wasteland, there were not only grass roots but also stones. After turning the loose soil with the hoe once, he used a rake to gather the stones and grass roots in the wasteland to the head of the field, spreading them on the roads and between the ditches and ridges, and then used a hoe to break the grass roots and hoe down again. Repeating this three times was deep plowing.

After that, there were no stones and grass roots in the field, but there were grass seeds. This thing needed a small hoe every three days and a big hoe every five days. Intensive cultivation was just this hard.

Zhu Yijun was busy with state affairs. His personal engagement in farming was the simplest first step of reclaiming land. He worked hard all day and only reclaimed less than one-tenth of a mu of land. As the Great Ming Emperor, Zhu Yijun being able to go to the fields was already a great luck. He was wearing short brown clothes, working hard in the fields to turn stones and remove grass roots, raking ridges—this was already called personal engagement in farming.

It was indeed more symbolic than practical, but Zhu Yijun really knew the hardship of the poor commoners.

But these were only a small part of farming. A piece of land from wasteland to regular field took at least three to five years, and once it was abandoned, it needed to be reclaimed again.

"Hoeing the crops at noon, sweat drips into the soil. Who knows that the food on the plate is hard-earned?" Zhu Yijun returned to the grand carriage, preparing to return to the palace. He was the Emperor, working from dawn to dusk, just making it difficult for the city guards.

Wang Yaozhuo leaned on Zhu Yijun. She had caught more than a dozen grasshoppers today. Being pregnant, she just came out for an outing. His Majesty liked to take her out to play, because the eldest son was born, and the mother was expensive because of the son. Even Empress Dowager Li couldn't control this young couple.

Wang Yaozhuo shook her head and said: "The poet Li Shen, who wrote the two 'Pity the Farmers' poems, was a good official. Alas, alas, his reputation after death became worse and worse. Some people said he ate three hundred chicken tongues in one meal. It is simply absurd."

Wang Yaozhuo read poetry. Her husband liked to personally engage in farming. She had read this "Pity the Farmers." After understanding this poet, she felt sorry for Li Shen being splashed with dirty water after his death.

Zhu Yijun looked at the desolate capital suburbs after the ice and snow melted and said with great emotion: "The Great Ming commoners are always so resilient. Reclaiming land is so difficult, but they are not afraid. They are only afraid of the corrupt officials' various names for taxes and levies, and the rent and private demands of the local gentry. And the taxes and levies, and rent and private demands, are parasitic on the imperial grain, that is, parasitic on the imperial court's taxes."

The Great Ming imperial court's taxes were not heavy, but this layer-by-layer apportionment, plus the private demands of rent, became the natural enemy of the Great Ming commoners.

Reclaiming land is hard, but not as hard as the difficulties caused by human disaster.

Zhu Yijun's years, in a word, were just reducing human disaster, letting the Great Ming meat-eaters who eat people have a better-looking way of eating.

In the third month of spring, the "Earth" grade private room of the Great Ming's Taibai Building was quite lively.

The wealthy households of the Western City went in one after another to toast, followed by the beauties and beauties lining up to toast, but the noble guests in the private room didn't leave anyone. They could toast and be polite, but when it came to real business, they didn't talk about it at all. And the beauties were even more useless. The noble guests in the private room were all "oil and salt wouldn't enter."

The guests inside were the son-in-law of Wang Chonggu's younger brother Wang Chongyi, the supervisory official of the Great Ming Mizhou Shipping Office, Yao Guangqi, and an extremely arrogant person, Wang Qian.

Yao Guangqi betrayed the wealthy households of the Western City and became the son-in-law of the Shanxi merchants. Yao Guangqi returned to the capital for the kelp business. He went home, and his father Yao Zhangzhen arranged this banquet, hoping to pull Yao Guangqi back to the Western City camp.

Nothing else, the Yao Guangqi of now was no longer that loser who lost to Wang Qian and fled the capital in a mess, but the famous "Kelp King"!

"Uncle Yao, I am very happy that you can set this table today, but I, Wang Qian, am very unhappy about the things you arranged."

"The connections you have in the Western City, my father has. The beauties you can give in the Western City, my father can give more! You are digging our Shanxi people's wall in front of me. It doesn't make sense!" Wang Qian, who had already returned to the capital, was even more arrogant! How could this Yao Zhangzhen be an elder? He was pointed at by Wang Qian and scolded.

This Wang Qian went out for a trip, ran to Sichuan, and firmly obtained great merits. He was promoted three levels in a row and became a fourth-rank Censor-in-Chief. Wang Qian, who had a seat at the banquet, was simply arrogant. As soon as he returned to the capital, he set up a three-day flowing banquet, announcing that the capital's number two wealthy young master had returned.

This flowing banquet, according to Wang Qian's meaning, was to be set for ten days. Wang Chonggu also agreed. The rebellious son returned to the rebellious son, and the merit returned to the merit. They were two different things.

The ten-day flowing banquet only lasted for three days. It wasn't that the wealthy young master had no money, but that Yao Guangqi returned to the capital. Wang Qian immediately put away his arrogant face. His achievements were based on the power of the Shanxi Party, and compared with Yao Guangqi's struggle, they became a bit lackluster.

Before, Yao Guangqi was not Wang Qian's opponent. Now, Yao Guangqi, who did practical things, was no longer Wang Qian's opponent.

In three years, the kelp business presided over by Yao Guangqi brought 170,000 silver in profits to the Wang family and more than 800,000 silver in income to the entire Shanxi Party.

Kelp King, well-deserved.

Therefore, Yao Zhangzhen's public act of digging the Shanxi Party's wall made Wang Qian very unhappy.

Yao Guangqi, as a son, turned a deaf ear to Wang Qian's scolding of his father, and was too lazy to persuade him, because today's banquet was for business, not for father-son feelings.

Kelp business, he didn't make much money, only 30,000 taels of silver in three years. This was still a dividend forced by Wang Chongyi, and it was still in the name of fearing that his daughter would suffer.

In the entire kelp business, Yao Guangqi's integrity was almost catching up with Hai Rui. However, if Yao Guangqi mastered a little bit of bureaucratic corruption and agency means, annexing tens of thousands of mu of land would not be a problem.

The popularity of the kelp business was mainly because of rigid demand and sales paired with salt. On the dining tables of Great Ming commoners in winter, besides cabbage, there was more kelp. Kelp stewed meat was one of the supreme delicacies of the New Year, and even the Great Ming Emperor said it was good.

"Vicious boy is arrogant! Is this how your father taught you to treat people?" Yao Changxing said angrily. Yao Changxing was Yao Zhangzhen's younger brother. His elder brother wanted to plot the kelp business and couldn't turn his face, so he, the younger brother, had to teach him a lesson.

Wang Qian's folding fan used for showing off closed with a bang, and he said loudly: "Arrogant? My father is Wang Chonggu! I will tell my father what you said when I go back. Can you afford it? Teaching me how to do things?!"

Competing with family background? Unless the sons of Zhang Juzheng, who closed their doors and studied strange skills in the Academy of Sciences all day, came out, who was he, Wang Qian, afraid of?

"Alright, alright, harmony brings wealth, after all. Let us continue discussing this matter of kelp." Yao Zhangzhen laughed and brushed it off, appearing not to mind the clash at all. For a businessman, business comes first; profit is more important than anything else.

"Uncle doesn't think kelp profit is thin?" Wang Qian asked with a smile, his face changing faster than turning a book.

Yao Zhangzhen said quite seriously: "Kelp profit is thin, but the sea goods profit is thick. It was my shortsightedness back then. I didn't think of this. The Shanxi Party is mainly in the Northwest. The Southern Yamen, Huguang, Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, and Qian regions still have to look at us, right? Business still has to be discussed. Otherwise, Young Master Wang wouldn't have come today."

Yao Zhangzhen invited guests, would he, Wang Qian, come?

It was still because the Shanxi Party's hands couldn't, and didn't dare to, reach so far.

"This is His Majesty's business. Uncle, have you thought about entering the game? By then, those wealthy households in the Western City will beat Uncle into the ranks of traitors. I'm afraid the Yao family's situation will be worrying." Wang Qian asked curiously.

Yao Zhangzhen smiled. His Majesty was determined to revitalize the Great Ming. Living in the Great Ming, one couldn't bypass the Emperor's will.

If you don't buy shares, you go into the soil.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 420 =====