Chapter 224: The Influential Clans' 1st Strike

"Your Highness, Manager Yang requests an audience."

No sooner had one maid left than another came to report.

Zhao Xu smiled helplessly.

The leisure time was over; it was time to get down to business.

He arrived at the front courtyard.

Yang He was already waiting in the Council Hall.

However, his expression was quite grim.

Zhao Xu frowned; right now, the entire Yanzhou, whether generals or officials, was celebrating as if it were the New Year.

Naturally, Yang He wearing such a sour face made him feel strange.

"Your Highness, something has happened," Yang He said in a low voice upon seeing Zhao Xu arrive.

"What is it?" Zhao Xu asked, puzzled.

Although the expansion of his fief to the entire Yanzhou did not have a particularly significant benefit for the merchant firm.

It was not detrimental to the firm either.

He could not think of anything that would make things difficult for the firm.

"Today, the merchants of the Influential Clans came to the firm, one after another demanding to return their exclusive sales rights to the Prince's Mansion and asking for their Silver back, claiming they will no longer purchase the Prince's Mansion's commercial goods," Yang He said, his face so gloomy it could drip water.

After hearing this, a surge of anger welled up in Zhao Xu's heart.

This time, when Liang Cheng came, he had told him every detail of the arguments in the imperial court.

If not for the Influential Clans led by Dou Wei forcing the issue, his Prince's Personal Army could have expanded to 210,000 men.

He had not expected that it would be enough to have been sabotaged in the imperial court.

Now, they were actually instructing the merchants under their command to tear up contracts, preparing to contain him through trade.

"Those bastards!" Zhao Xu snorted in anger.

In fact, he should have expected that these Influential Clans would act this way.

When the Yuan Family first took control of Yanzhou, the Eight Great Influential Clans also targeted and suppressed them at every turn.

Later, the Yuan Family had no choice but to attach themselves to the Han Family, only then gaining a voice in the court with the Han Family's support.

At the same time, Yuan Li traded privately with the Northern Di, and only by bypassing the Eight Great Influential Clans in this way did the Yuan Family become a behemoth in Yanzhou.

Even the Eight Great Influential Clans could do nothing about it.

Now that Yuan Li had fallen, he had become the new master of Yanzhou.

These Influential Clans had come again.

And in his view, compared to Yuan Li, the Influential Clans were likely even more wary of him.

After all, he was the Ninth Prince of the Great Song, of the heaven-mandated Royal Clan.

Yuan Li being powerful was merely a warlord in Yanzhou, but if he were powerful, it would cause the balance between the Influential Clans and the Royal Clan to tilt toward the Royal Clan.

"Your Highness, what should be done about this?" Yang He asked, his face anxious.

The Influential Clans' merchants cutting off trade with the Prince's Mansion would cause the Prince's Mansion's trade volume to decrease by half.

Now that the Yan Wang had gone through great pains to take control of the entire Yanzhou, it was precisely the time when Silver was needed.

He was anxious from the bottom of his heart.

"The exclusive sales rights are not the problem; there are contracts for those. They want to return them just like that? Simply dreaming. However, the initiative to purchase goods is in their hands; that is indeed troublesome," Zhao Xu said.

Although he was grinding his teeth in hatred, he had indeed been caught by his weak point by these Influential Clans this time.

These Influential Clans had a very firm grip on the control of this province.

If they did not let his goods enter, he really had no way.

This time, they were willing to not make money themselves,

just to contain him.

"Sigh." Seeing that the Yan Wang also seemed to have no ideas, Yang He sighed, "Your Highness, are we just going to let them manipulate us?"

"Of course not," Zhao Xu narrowed his eyes.

Trade was the economic lifeline of Yanzhou, related to the most primitive capital accumulation.

If the path of accumulation was blocked, even if his mind was full of technology, he would have no way to spark an Industrial Revolution in Yanzhou.

The reason was simple: things were produced but could not be sold, making it impossible to profit.

Yet craftsmen and raw materials required Silver.

Thus, this industry would turn into a negative asset.

Once it became a negative asset, the industry would be as good as dead.

The people in this industry would have to go back to relying on farming to survive.

In this way, Yanzhou would be unable to let all kinds of Workshops bloom everywhere and move from simple agriculture toward industry.

And the price of failing to industrialize was, like in the modern era, being invaded by colonizers.

Furthermore, without enough Silver, his policy of low taxes would be unable to continue to be implemented, and the loyalty of the common people would decline.

In order to maintain the operation of Yanzhou, he would even have to scrape Silver from the common people of Yanzhou to build Artillery and build ships.

This was something the common people of Yanzhou simply could not afford.

Therefore, he had to find a way to break the deadlock.

Thinking of this, he said to Yang He: "You go back for now; this Prince has his own plans."

"Yes, Your Highness." Yang He bowed, opened his mouth, sighed again, and turned to leave.

After Yang He left.

Zhao Xu entered the study alone.

He prepared to submit a memorial to Zhao Heng, though the memorial was not to criticize what the powerful clans had done.

After all, these powerful clans were very shrewd; they only needed to shirk responsibility by claiming it was the merchants' own decision.

What he needed to do was consolidate his own commercial interests in the commanderies controlled by the Imperial Clan.

Since these powerful clans had made a move, they would certainly also encroach upon his market within the Imperial Clan.

The purpose of his submitting this memorial was to secure an official status for the Yan Commandery Trading Firm and firmly occupy the market in the Imperial Clan's territory.

Besides this, there was one more important matter, which was to have Zhao Heng permit him to conduct maritime trade.

In this way, he could open up new markets.

It was just that his Imperial Father had only recently rewarded him heavily.

He feared it would be difficult to ask for these things now.

After all, while the Imperial Clan's prestige had greatly increased, Zhao Heng still faced many constraints.

He had to produce something compelling to make him make up his mind.

And the most suitable thing was none other than Artillery.

After all, Liang Cheng had come that day and mentioned this matter obliquely.

This indicated that Zhao Heng had this intention.

It was just that he had recently achieved a great victory, and he was unwilling to brazenly ask for it.

Later on, he would certainly find a way to obtain Artillery from him.

Since that was the case, it would be better to use it directly for a trade.

However, he naturally would not give Zhao Heng the superior Steel Cannon he was currently using.

When he first adopted Iron Mold Casting, he had considered the issue of mass production.

He had also considered the issue of selling Artillery in the future.

He only needed to swap the steel for iron and the Granular Gunpowder for ordinary Gunpowder to obtain a batch of low-spec cast iron cannons.

These Artillery pieces were cheap, had a high rate of barrel explosion, and had a short range.

Their quality was only equivalent to the Artillery of the 16th or 17th century of the contemporary era.

Whereas his Steel Cannon could be ranked among the advanced even in the 19th century.

After all, it was only when large-scale steelmaking gradually became popular at that time that steel cannons came into existence.

Therefore, he felt that using low-spec Artillery to trade for Silver was a good deal.

After all, with Silver, he could put more technologies into practice.

Thinking of this, he began to write.

"Your Highness, Master Mi—no, Imperial Father-in-law Mi has arrived." Just as the memorial was finished and Zhao Xu was about to order it to be sent to Jingshi.

At this moment, he heard Feng'er's excited voice ring out.

"Imperial Father-in-law Mi?" Upon hearing this, Zhao Xu was startled at first, then revealed a smile.

Previously, because of the lack of literate people to serve as officials, he had sent a letter to Imperial Concubine Mi, hoping to have the Mi Family help.

Now that the Yanzhou Seven Commanderies were waiting to be rebuilt, it had to be said that their arrival was just in time.

The annoyance in his heart caused by the matter of the powerful clans instantly dissipated, and he went with Feng'er to the entrance of the Prince's Mansion.

He saw an old man dressed in simple clothing with a goatee being surrounded by many scholars.

Seeing Zhao Xu, a trace of a smile appeared in his eyes, carrying a hint of affection.