Chapter 1173: Come Quick and See — the Retired Emperor Has Set Up a Stall

In the summer of the sixteenth year of Hongxing, at the beginning of the sixth month, Zhou Kui — the expired imperial father-in-law who lived permanently in Suzhou and only went to Yingtian Prefecture once a year, in the twelfth month, to offer birthday congratulations to his son-in-law the Chongzhen Retired Emperor and incidentally spend the New Year — suddenly received an oral edict from the Retired Emperor, brought by an old eunuch from the Palace of Benevolent Longevity, ordering him to proceed to the Old Mountain Palace for an audience that very day, without delay!

What was going on?

Zhou Kui, the imperial father-in-law, now seventy-four years old, was badly startled by this sudden oral edict from the Retired Emperor — nothing like this had happened in nearly twenty years!

As the Retired Emperor's father-in-law and the Emperor's maternal grandfather, he had gone thoroughly cold as far back as the year of the Jiashen catastrophe. Not only did his grandson Zhu Cilang have no use for him, but even Chongzhen, his son-in-law, and Empress Zhou, his own daughter, resented him for refusing to take the lead in contributing military funds at the critical moment when Li Zicheng's army was bearing down on the capital — and worse, for taking the lead in wrecking the whole fundraising plan. So after they reached Jiangnan, he had simply been cast aside.

Among the crowd of imperial relatives and meritorious nobles who followed Zhu Cilang south, he was surely the coldest case of all. He did not even receive the house or residential plot in Yingtian Prefecture that everyone else got, let alone having the two characters "overcoming hardship" added before his title of Jiading Bo.

Fortunately, the imperial father-in-law Zhou was a native of Suzhou, with a home, a business, fields, and property in Suzhou Prefecture, and could be counted as one of the richest men in the region. Although his son-in-law, daughter, and grandson had no regard for him, and no one sent him money or goods anymore, and even the landowners who had once sheltered under his name redeemed their fields one after another, while the official fields and military fields he had encroached upon all returned to their original owners — still, Zhou Kui was after all an imperial relative by marriage, the natural father of the Retired Emperor's Empress, and Zhu Cilang's own maternal grandfather.

So long as Zhu Cilang did not give the word, no one dared slaughter the old gentleman like a pig... for the Son of Heaven's favor and wrath were ever hard to predict! Who knew when this cold stove might flare up again?

Besides, there were plenty of people in Suzhou whom Zhu Cilang did not like! Zhu Cilang's approach had always been northern military rule over southern gentry — using the exiled northern military aristocracy to squeeze money and labor out of the southern landlords and rich merchants. It sounded harsh, but in practice it was highly effective!

What else could be done? Could one rely on the southeastern gentry? Without a knife at their throats, who would willingly hand over money?

Of course, Zhu Cilang did not go in for killing the hen to get the eggs. His idea was to release water to raise the fish — sustainable extraction.

So while stripping the southeastern gentry of their political and economic privileges, he was also very careful to protect their lawful interests. As for the movable wealth they had previously gained through privilege, he let it pass lightly, basically preserving their vitality.

And this crowd of Jiangnan landlords and profiteers who had lost their privileges while keeping their vitality intact (without privileges, they were of course no longer true gentry) later ran straight into the high-speed period of economic development that lasted from the last years of Chongzhen all the way to the present!

This was a super boom! The external environment was the Age of Discovery, while internally Zhu Cilang stimulated industry and commerce, developed finance, and delegated power to the localities — summed up, that was about the whole three-stroke play. It looked simple, but the results were absolutely stunning!

Since the founding of the Ming dynasty, the policy had always been to suppress commerce. Although many restrictions were later relaxed, there had never been any grand, open encouragement. So after the profiteers got rich, they all tried to squeeze into the gentry class, and few of them kept growing.

Moreover, because of gentry privileges, the countryside of Jiangnan had always been stuck at the threshold of capitalism, unable to take the next step.

Later generations may find it hard to understand the crucial place of agriculture on the road to capitalism, but Zhu Cilang, living in the seventeenth century and plagued by the problem of feeding nearly two hundred million people, knew all too well the truth that "food is heaven" — if people cannot eat their fill, how can they walk the road of capital?

And in this era, the raw materials of capitalist industry and commerce came mainly from agriculture! The production of cotton, silk, wool, and the like all competed with grain for land!

And a rich peasant or landlord who supplied large quantities of raw materials to handicraft industry was no longer a simple farmer (the concept of strictly separating agriculture from industry and commerce probably exists only in China, does it not?), but rather an industrial-commercial landlord or rich peasant.

And in Jiangnan, where handicraft industry was highly developed, industrial-commercial landlords and rich peasants had been springing up like bamboo shoots after rain since the last years of Chongzhen.

For in this period, the rapid development of handicraft industry created enormous demand for cash crops, while at the same time the great farms that appeared in Huguang, the Huai region, Jin'ou, Jinghai, and elsewhere could supply Jiangnan with sufficient and cheap grain. In addition, the spread of foreign crops such as sweet potatoes and potatoes provided southeastern farmers with extra cheap food.

So the landlord-profiteers who were at once farmers, merchants, and manufacturers began to make their grand entrance.

And the imperial father-in-law Zhou was actually one of their number!

This imperial father-in-law was not a man for great undertakings, but he was absolutely a wicked man who knew how to manage money!

Stingy, shrewd, frugal, with a bit of background, with capital, and all along quietly doing business.

So after completely losing his political privileges, he very naturally made the transition to commerce.

To call it commerce was not quite right — it was actually combined farming, industry, and trade, merely run and managed on a commercial model.

The imperial father-in-law's main business was mulberry fields and silkworm raising. In the last years of Chongzhen he had taken back the land he rented out around his Suzhou home, converted the paddies to mulberries, and planted over ten thousand mu of mulberry trees in one go. Once the trees were established, he began raising silkworms and sheep on a large scale (sheep eat mulberry leaves too).

And he did not raise them blindly. The old man had taken inspiration from the Old Mountain horse farm and begun selective breeding in his own silkworm sheds, culling the sick and weak and keeping the strong. After more than ten years, he had built up the brand of "Suzhou Imperial Father-in-Law Silkworms"!

After succeeding with the mulberry fields, the old imperial father-in-law led his sons into opening a money shop — a so-called money shop was really a small bank. After the success of the maritime merchant bank and the salt merchant bank, many great merchants discovered that this line of business brought in money quickly and in quantity, so they threw themselves into it. If they could not open a big bank, they set up a small money shop.

Zhou the imperial father-in-law set up a money shop that only handled deposits, loans, and remittances within the Suzhou area (remittances had to go through the channels of the maritime and salt banks, with the fees split with those two banks).

Needless to say, it must have been doing rather well!

He had even refused to lend money to the Chongzhen Emperor — how could the asset quality of his money shop be poor?

So by the sixteenth year of Hongxing, the imperial father-in-law Zhou, who had long since lost most of his privileges, was actually richer than he had been back when Chongzhen held power...

And this imperial father-in-law, who had made his great fortune through his own striving, "loved" the Chongzhen Retired Emperor even more than he had in the days when he grew rich off his son-in-law.

Money earned through one's own bitter struggle is precious! And all the more frightening to lose!

The imperial father-in-law Zhou knew that Zhu Cilang disliked him, and that the reason he had not been touched was mostly because of his daughter and son-in-law... If his son-in-law were gone, would this bit of family wealth be confiscated by his grandson?

Back when he was in power, he had taken plenty of bribes, and the process of making his fortune in business later could not possibly have been entirely clean. If the Censors were really set to investigate, there would be no good ending for him.

So now, upon receiving Chongzhen's oral edict, his first thought was that his dissolute and muddle-headed son-in-law was very likely on his last legs...

The imperial father-in-law Zhou did not dare delay. He quickly hired a fast boat and headed straight for Pukou. Upon reaching Pukou he did not stop, but went directly to the Palace of Benevolent Longevity on Old Mountain. When he arrived outside the palace, he found that a place whose gates had once been cold and deserted was now a sea of people!

But they did not look like people come to visit the sick — rather like people come to a temple fair... Judging by their dress and manner, they should all be merchants from the Nanjing and Pukou area.

What was going on?

"Old sir, do you really not know? The Retired Emperor has set up a stall outside the Palace of Benevolent Longevity and is doing business!"

Someone quickly told the imperial father-in-law Zhou what was happening.

"What! The Retired Emperor is running a stall? Is that true? What is he selling?" The old imperial father-in-law was stunned.

"Selling fine goods, of course!" the man answered. "Silks and satins, jade and curios, jewelry and ornaments, Western clocks and watches... all gifts and tribute the Retired Emperor has received over the years."

"Gifts and tribute? Can such things be sold?"

"He's out of money!" the man said. "Old sir, you still don't know? A big-money venture has come out of Yingtian Prefecture, and the Retired Emperor wants a piece of it. With no capital, what can he do? He has to sell his things!"

"What venture is that?" the imperial father-in-law Zhou pressed on.

"The venture of investing in building a nation!"

(End of Chapter)