Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1178 Shopping Mall Affairs (Part [-])
Although there is no coincidence, but the unlucky merchants of Jiangsu and Zhejiang are so dense and intertwined, it is obviously not pure unlucky, but Jinghua is deliberately targeting them.

These big merchants themselves were not good men and women, so they naturally realized that something was wrong, so they connected in private, and finally decided to go to Taicang for a meeting.

The reason why I went to Taicang for the meeting was mainly because of Wang Xijue's relationship.Wang Xijue is the richest man in Suzhou. As long as the Duke Wei's mansion in Nanjing doesn't come out to compete for the name, then he will most likely also be the richest man in the southeast, and a figure at the level of the Jiangnan commercial road.

However, this is not the main reason why Jiangsu and Zhejiang maritime merchants went to Taicang Prefecture for a meeting. The bigger reason is that Wang Xijue himself is still in a state of worry, and he really cannot leave his hometown at this time-this kind of behavior is not good for his reputation as the most filial piety in the world. Said it was disastrous, so he had to let others accommodate him.

However, as soon as the sea merchants arrived in Taicang, they caught up with a big news: although the messenger of Shen Shihang arrived late, it finally arrived, and brought Jinghua's "declaration of war".

After a while of uproar, the sea merchants were divided into two factions.

Most of the sea merchants in Jiangsu and Zhejiang were filled with righteous indignation at Jinghua's arrogance, clamoring to make Jinghua look good.The mainstream view is: Gao Qiuzhen dared to risk the disgrace of the world with his insignificant body.

A more polite way of saying it is: Gao Longwen's move is really unwise, but I'm afraid there are villains lobbying for it.However, how can I, a modest gentleman, follow the example of that fellow, shouting and beating and killing at every turn?It is better to write a joint letter to Bai Yulou first, so that Gao Longwen knows the pros and cons, so that he may change his mind and get the best of both worlds.

However, behind these two factions, there are still some people who support the Punishment faction or the Negotiation faction, but they have already retreated in their hearts. So I made a high-level pragmatic decision.

The last type of people are not stupid, nor are they naturally soft bones, but their business is really inseparable from Jinghua.

Not all the merchants in Jiangsu and Zhejiang made a living by selling silk, and there were still many people who needed to buy goods from other regions.For example, a large part of porcelain needs to be transported from Jingdezhen, and the overlord of the Yangtze River shipping is undoubtedly Jinghua.

Using Jinghua’s inland waterway ships to transport materials, not only are the ships excellent and the price fluctuations are small, but Jinghua’s face is also big enough that no one will dare to set up checkpoints and barriers for it along the route. These advantages are far beyond the reach of other ships.

Not only Jingdezhen porcelain, Jinghua's own Yu porcelain (Jun porcelain, taboo Zhu Yijun) is also a popular product that is sought after in the sky, which makes porcelain merchants dare to tear themselves apart with Jinghua so easily?
So what if he was filled with righteous indignation, did he really have such great determination, because he dared to say that I would not eat this meal because of a moment of anger?

Not to mention that after the imperial court implemented water and sea transportation in parallel, once something happened to the Yellow River, there were still many people from Jiangsu and Zhejiang maritime merchants engaged in the business of transporting grain, and the agriculture in Jiangsu and Zhejiang is now mainly based on the cultivation of cash crops, and most of the grain needs to be Shipped from the Huguang area.

This turns back to the issue of the Yangtze River waterway. Once Jinghua does not supply goods, what will they transport?Transport the sand to Yanjing, insert a bid and sell the head to give away the head?

So in this way, in fact, only the silk merchants are "not afraid of big things", because Jinghua has not been involved in the silk industry at least now-in fact, there are some, but what Jinghua does is tussah silk from Liaodong, and the products of both parties Different grades target different buyers, and there is no direct competition with them.

In this way, everyone in the meeting said that the public is right, and the mother-in-law said that the mother-in-law is right, making Wang Xijue, a landlord, as big as a fight.

Of course Wang Xijue himself is a hardliner. He is the richest man in Suzhou, the overlord of Daming Susi and the Suzhou embroidery industry, and he doesn't need to look at the face of high pragmatism to eat.

It's just that his identity severely limits him and prevents him from expressing his wishes clearly.

Firstly, as the convener of this meeting, he had to take care of all aspects, and he couldn't just express his opinion based on his own mood.

Second, he is different from Gao Yushi. Gao Yushi, as a representative of the school of economics and practicality, usually dares to show the fact that he is rich, and even regards making money as a means of practicing his theory of economics and practicality.

But he, Wang Xijue, is a master of the study of mind. He has said before that the study of the mind belongs to "moral practice", and the focus is on morality, so he has always shown an image of treating money like dung.If he immediately became angry because of Jinghua's current actions, and wanted to fight aggressively, then the image he had worked so hard to build over the years would be completely destroyed.

It can be seen from this that reputation is sometimes a double-edged sword, and high pragmatism is sometimes forced by it, let alone Wang Xijue's status?

In addition, Wang Xijue now knows that his way back to the court is almost blocked by Gao Yushi, and he secretly hates Gao Yushi even more.

Therefore, Wang Xijue in this meeting was so aggrieved that he wanted to beat someone up. He obviously wanted to have a decisive battle with Jinghua, but he still wanted to speak in an extremely euphemistic, tactful, and extremely "considerate of the overall situation". I can't tell the pain.

But Wang Xijue is Wang Xijue after all, he knows that internal conflicts must not be intensified at this time, and he can only unite people as much as possible to form an atmosphere of common hatred and hatred, so as to have capital and high pragmatism to compete.Otherwise, the silk merchants and other maritime merchants could not reach an agreement, and they just broke up. At that time, the silk business alone would definitely not be able to compete with Jinghua.

So he persuaded everyone to calm down first, and rest at his place for a day, think about the stakes, and wait for everyone to discuss tomorrow.

Generally speaking, it's not a good idea for a hardliner like him.Because people are under impulse, their courage is multiplied. If Wang Xijue wants more people to agree to "declare war" on Jinghua, he should take advantage of today's time when many people are overwhelmed by anger. It is even better to hold a vote , come out with something like a joint letter, there is no way to deny it in black and white, so I can only bite the bullet and follow suit.

But Wang Xijue obviously has his considerations.

He is not simply the richest man in Suzhou, he is a great scholar of scholars and an important minister of the imperial court. In terms of fame, qualifications, and connections, he is very promising to join the cabinet.

For such a person, although money cannot be said to be dispensable, at least its importance is definitely not as important as the prospect of joining the cabinet.

Wang Xijue was born in the Taiyuan Wang family, one of the top wealthy families in Chinese history that has been passed down for thousands of years. His ancestors abandoned their officials and fled to the south of the Yangtze River to escape the war during the "Red Turban Uprising" at the end of the Yuan Dynasty. One of his descendants entered Taicang during the Hongzhi period. , is the origin of Wang Xijue's branch.

Wang Xijue's grandfather, Wang Yong, was good at management and became a wealthy man of his generation. In his later years, he became the richest man in Suzhou.His father, Wang Mengxiang, was a scholar in his early years and had been admitted to Nanjian as a supervisor (Nanjian is the Nanjing Guozijian).But later, due to lawsuit disputes, he was forced to abandon Confucianism and start a business to manage the family business, but it also made Wang Mengxiang realize that in the Ming Dynasty, money alone was not enough. Cultivate into usefulness.

This kind of thinking seriously affected Wang Xijue in his childhood and boyhood, so that he "regarded money like dung" since he was a child.At that time, two brothers in the Wang clan were fighting for the family property. In order to gain the support of the patriarch Wang Mengxiang, one of them secretly wrapped a red envelope for Wang Xijue, asking Wang Xijue to intercede on his behalf.

As a result, Wang Xijue became furious, threw the bag of silver into the river in public, and scolded the cousin: "How dare you look down on me?"—meaning how could I, Wang Xijue, take money seriously.

Not only is his conduct excellent, but Wang Xijue's ability to read is even better. He lived up to the expectations of his father and grandfather. He ranked first in the 41st Jiajing Examination as Huiyuan, and ranked second in the court examination as Huiyuan, second only to Shen Shixing—and Wang Xijue himself is not very satisfied with this, because he feels that he lags behind Shen Shixing because he is not as good-looking as the latter—He Qiaoyuan, a historian of the late Ming Dynasty, Nanjing household of the Chongzhen Dynasty, and Shangshu of the Ministry of Industry, in "Portrait of Wang Wensu" "Praise" describes Wang Xijue as "red eyes and yellow beard, sick crane and thin turtle".

Crane and tortoise are originally commendatory words, but sickness and thinness are obviously not counted. This is what people say with compliments. It can be seen that Wang Xijue's appearance is probably too "clear", and red eyes and yellow beard... This is even more unsatisfactory. It is in line with the usual aesthetics.

Therefore, Wang Xijue was not even convinced by Shen Shixing's knowledge, and thought that he was the real pillar of the country.

For such a person, what he really wants is obviously to be a first-rank official and govern the world, so as to revive the family reputation of the Wang family in Taiyuan. Anything other than this is a trivial matter.

Therefore, he persuaded the sea merchants to rest for one night first, so that they would not be said to be threatening the public in the future.But at the same time, Wang Xijue didn't really intend to make them confess their innocence, and go back to their respective homes and find their own mothers tomorrow morning, and Jinghua made them into this without saying a word.

He first quietly invited all the silk merchants to his backyard to discuss matters. After sending them away, he invited several large merchants involved in shipbuilding, and finally invited porcelain merchants and grain merchants related to the Yangtze River waterway.

A total of several groups of people were invited back and forth, and the discussion was over until the end of the day.

In the early morning of the next day, Wang Xijue, dressed in filial piety, attended and presided over the Maritime Conference again.

Because of yesterday's night talk, most people are relatively silent today. Only a group of businessmen who really can't get rid of Jinghua are still clamoring that Jinghua is invincible. By then, everyone will have nothing to eat.Not to mention anything else, without Jinghua's two ocean fleets taking turns to escort, how would this business go to sea?
When you go to Japan, there are a lot of pirates in Japan. Even some daimyos are princes during the day and become pirates at night. Without Jinghua's "book and sword flag" covering them, the delivery to Japan is also free.These people are not Wang Zhi, the king of Jinghai back then, but they have no ability to deter those big names.On the contrary, the only thing that can deter them now is the highly pragmatic Jinghua.

If you can't go to Japan, let alone Nanyang.After the Fujian Sea Pirate Group was defeated by Jinghua two years ago, although most of them were dismissed by Jinghua, and a few of them were incorporated, there are still many people scattered around, and now they are sporadic pirates.

Jinghua can ignore these pirates, because Jinghua is used to dispatching in large formations to facilitate escort, and the formation of dozens of large ships at every turn is not what those scattered pirates dare to covet.

But now that Jinghua doesn't take them to play, what about them?
What's more, Nanyang has to face not only pirates in the Fujian Sea, but also along the coast of Guangdong and Luzon, and there are more in the entire Nanyang region.In addition to pirates, those Fanren (Europeans) also often robbed passing merchant ships-who doesn't know the style of these colonists?Those who are easy to grab will be robbed, and those who are not easy to rob will be honestly doing business.

Wang Xijue listened to them calmly, then looked around and asked: "If you have any doubts, why not tell me one by one."

The court officials spoke in a different manner, as if they were receiving petitioners.

But this is Daming, everyone really likes this set.Then several maritime merchants raised some more detailed questions. Wang Xijue nodded slightly, listened with a smile on his face, and then slowly stood up.

Wang Xijue was not tall, and even looked a little thin, but he had a lot of aura, raised his hands slightly, and then pressed them down lightly, everyone quieted down and listened to him with bated breath.

"Xi Jue has already considered what you are worried about last night." He stretched out his hand and gestured to several people in the field, and said: "The seven patriarchs including Wang, Xu, Chen, and Zhang have reached an agreement last night, and they will jointly establish a family. The shipyard will build a batch of inland waterships as quickly as possible to transport goods from all over the river for you, and get rid of your dependence on Jinghua."

This news is quite shocking, but the strength of the seven companies is indeed not small. Even if it cannot be compared with the Jinghua Shipyard, which has long been the king of shipbuilding, it seems that it can still be expected if it is only for Jiangsu and Zhejiang maritime merchants.

But this is not enough, someone asked again: "Inland river boats, the Seven Great Masters can build them by themselves, but the big boats are not so easy, right? I'm not saying that the Seven Great Masters can't build sea boats, after all, this craft is not what it is today. I just said that I need to learn, but what about the guns and artillery on sea ships? Would Jing Shigong (Wang Xijue Jingshi) say that the Seven Masters are planning to build a gun factory or an artillery factory? This is not like shipbuilding, we No one has ever done this business."

Wang Xijue had expected it a long time ago, and Nian Xu smiled and said: "Brother Peng is very worried. It is true that none of the seven of us can immediately build a gun factory or artillery factory, but this gun or artillery may not only be found in Jinghua I can get it——Wang has his own means to discipline everyone's future sea-going ships so that they won't run out of guns. I don't know if Wang's words can be trusted, Brother Peng?"
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PS: Although I have finished this chapter of shopping malls in two chapters, it is obviously not finished in terms of the plot. This is a blank space. I will pick it up and insert it later when things are important, uh ...mainly to avoid getting too much ink here.

(End of this chapter)