Mixed with salted fish in Hongwudang

Chapter 91 The wool comes out of the pig

After Zhu Yuanzhang expelled the Tartars and settled the Central Plains, he was actually quite unpopular with scholars.

Some people were foolishly loyal to the Yuan Dynasty and held the Shouyangshan mentality of not eating Mingsu.Some simply looked down on him, thinking that he was of a vulgar background, and treated literati like cattle and horses.

Of course, they were right.In Lao Zhu's eyes, no matter who you are, you are just a tool.

There was an incident recorded in Dajiao. The government recommended Yao Shurun ​​and Wang E to be officials. They were unwilling to go to Beijing to be officials.

In addition to the three major cases during the Hongwu period, no matter who was involved, Lao Zhu never relented, and the one who killed was called a river of blood and a head rolling.

Therefore, being an official was once considered a high-risk occupation, which attracted many Jiangnan literati to avoid it.

However, Lao Zhu is still strange, the less you come, the more he wants to recruit you.If you can't do it once, you can do it twice, and if you can't do it twice, you can do it many times. If you don't come many times, you will look down on our old Zhu, and you must be slaughtered!
"Princess Concubine, one of the people recommended by the lower officials is Yang Xinlu, the son of Yang Weizhen in Fengqiao, Shaoxing. This person has borrowed his father's reputation for not being an official. Although he is not well-known in the court, he has a very high reputation among the people. Jiangnan literati even regard him as a leader in the literary world!"

"The other person is Gao Ming, the younger brother of Gao Qi, a famous scholar in Suzhou. Back then, His Majesty slaughtered Gao Qi because of a poem, which caused great dissatisfaction among the literati in the south of the Yangtze River. The world regrets it."

"If the Crown Princess can recruit Gao Ming to be used by His Royal Highness Yun Wen, all scholars in the south of the Yangtze River will be convinced!"

"Besides the two, there is another person, Qin Hengbo, the younger brother of Qin Yubo. However, this person is good at cultivating mysteries, and likes to visit famous mountains and rivers. No one knows his whereabouts."

"If the Crown Princess is lucky enough to recruit this person, it will also add a lot of help to His Royal Highness Yun Yun!"

Mrs. Lu secretly wrote down the names of several people, then thanked Huang Zicheng for his guidance, led the crowd to dawdle for a while, and then returned to the Prince's Mansion, staring at the beams of the hall in a daze.

Although Huang Zicheng didn't say it clearly, with Lu's intelligence, how could he fail to understand the hidden meaning.

The so-called put to death and then live, if translated into the vernacular, isn't it a shrew who cries, makes trouble and hangs herself three times.

Since she had already said these words in front of Broken Dragon Stone, if she didn't say anything, she would definitely be ridiculed by the world, and even the old man would feel disgusted by it.

It's just that hanging himself is a technical job, and he might have put his own life in it.

Mrs. Lu wandered around the place where Zhu Biao's coffin had been placed for half an hour before making up his mind to hang it up for the old man and the world to see!

But just to be on the safe side, she decided to let others try it first to see how high the chance of success is!

"Dongmei, how has this palace treated you all these years?"

As soon as Dongmei heard this, she knew that there was something important for her to do, and she immediately expressed her loyalty to Mrs. Lu.

"Your Majesty's kindness to your servants is as great as a mountain, even if your servants go up the mountain of knives or down the pan of oil, it's hard to repay them!"

"Since you said that, I will entrust you with an important task. You can hang it up and show it to me!"

"what?"

Dongmei was so frightened that she hurriedly knelt down and begged for mercy.

"My lord, please forgive me, Dongmei has always been loyal to you, never..."

Lu interrupted Dongmei's crying.

"I just said that I want you to hang yourself, and I will order someone to save you immediately, not to let you really hang yourself!"

Dongmei felt better when she heard this.

While Lu and the palace maid were hiding in the Prince's Mansion to practice the stunt of hanging, Zhu Yunxie in the main hall was talking with his dear Thirteenth Uncle about making money.

"Uncle Thirteen, do you remember the last time we talked about opening a bookstore?"

"What's the matter, have you written a new script?"

"Yes!"

Zhu Gui felt a little excited when he heard this.

"Where is it, hurry up and let me appreciate it!"

"Uncle Thirteen, I hid the draft at home. I will take you back to get it during lunch break."

"What I'm discussing with you now is how to open a bookstore!"

Zhu Gui is most afraid of trouble, and he frowned when he heard this.

"When I was in the bookstore last time, didn't the owner say that you can give them the books to sell on behalf of you, there is no need to work hard to open some Laoshizi bookstore."

Zhu Yunxi continued to fool around.

"Uncle Thirteen, how much money will we save by handing over the books to them for sale?"

"If we open our own bookstore, find someone to print books and sell them ourselves, wouldn't it mean that the upstream and downstream can take all the money, and we will earn all the money!"

As soon as he mentioned making money, Zhu Gui immediately became interested, and his eyes were red because he was short of money.

The last time he gave something to Zhu Yunxi for his concubine, he secretly found 3000 taels of silver.If it weren't for the emerald cabbage being too eye-catching and difficult to shoot, he would even want to drop that thing.

"Yes!"

"Then tell me, what should we do now!"

"Uncle Thirteen, that's what I think. If we want to do something big, we'll find a suitable shop outside the palace, and then hire a group of artisans to print books for us!"

"I guarantee that the books I write will sell well. After we become famous, we will collect other people's books to make money!"

The more Zhu Gui listened, the more excited he became, and he felt eager to try.

"The storefront is worthless, and the rent of a few hundred taels a year is almost enough."

"Printing the book is not difficult. I am familiar with Ambassador Zheng of the Banking Bureau. Just give them some silver rewards and we will print it for us!"

Zhu Yunxi's eyes lit up when he heard this. He didn't expect that there was a place to print books in the palace, which would save a lot of money.

"Why don't we take a leave of absence from the husband and go to the Banking Bureau first?"

"Okay!"

The two of them had made up their minds, and then they disappeared into the main hall with one urine escape and the other excrement escape.

Qi Tai completely pretended not to see through the tricks of the two, and still read the book on his own.

He has always been lenient towards students, as long as he can complete his homework, he is never demanding on some disciplinary matters.

The so-called Banking Bureau is not in the palace, but is next to the Five Armies Commander's Mansion, which is a branch of the original Weapons Manufacturing Bureau.

After all, this thing is smoky and smoky all day long, and it is easy to cause a fire. Lao Zhu might have built it in the palace.

When the two arrived, a large order had just been received inside and outside the Banking Bureau, and everyone was busy with the formalities and proofreading. Only the ambassador, Zheng Yuanchang, was an idler, so he rushed over.

"His Royal Highness Yu Wang, do you want to make something good this time?"

Zhu Gui blushed in embarrassment when he heard that, half of the 3000 taels of silver he found last time were sent here to be cast into silver leaves per penny, so that he could spend them conveniently.

Now that the sufferer is standing next to him, he feels more or less embarrassed.

"Ahem... We want to print some books this time. I don't know if Ambassador Zheng is busy here?"

"Printing books..."

As soon as Zheng Yuanchang heard about the book printing, he lost interest in it.

The main reason is that this thing takes time and effort, not to mention, there is not much money left.

Relatively speaking, making gold and silver utensils and jewelry is much better. Last time, he made 500 taels of silver leaves for King Yu, and he earned 300 taels just for this item!
"His Royal Highness Prince Yu, it's not that the officials are trying to shirk with you, but His Majesty asked us to print [-] sets of the Diamond Sutra in order to bless Prince Yiwen."

"I saw it when you just came in. The Banking Bureau is busy all over, and there is really no manpower to help you print the book!"

When Zhu Gui heard that he was printing scriptures to pray for the eldest brother of the prince, he immediately shut up and planned to go outside the palace and spend a lot of money to find a printing library.

However, before he could speak, he heard Zhu Yunxie say a word.

"We don't print for nothing, we spend money!"

Once Zheng Yuanchang heard that the other party said he was willing to spend money, he felt less conflicted in his heart.

"I don't know how many sets your Highness wants to print, and what is the estimated cost of each set?"

"Print [-] sets for the time being, and there may be more in the future!"

"The cost..."

"Please quote a price first. We don't have to hire you. If the price you quoted is too high, we might as well go outside the palace and find someone else to print it!"

When Zheng Yuanchang heard this, he was secretly startled.

Since when did His Royal Highness the Three Emperors become so shrewd and know how to bargain?
You must know that the nobles in the palace are the best to deceive, basically they don't believe what they say.

"Your Highness, would you like me to give you a [-]% discount on the market price?"

Zhu Yunxi shook his head to express his displeasure, and Zheng Yuanchang continued to reduce the price.

"Then it's [-]% off. You have to let us earn some living money. If it's too little, the officials and the craftsmen under him won't be able to explain it!"

"Then give it a [-]% discount. You are not allowed to coax me. I will send someone to inquire outside the palace. If someone is cheaper than you, I will not leave this job to you!"

"Please rest assured, Your Highness, our Banking Bureau is definitely the cheapest in the entire capital, and we will never dare to charge you an extra penny!"

Zheng Yuanchang said so, but he really thought proudly in his heart, how to report more losses to the higher authorities, so as to save money for paper and ink.

These two items are the biggest costs of printing books, and labor is relatively second.

The reason why he dared to quote such a low price was based on the idea that the wool came from pigs, and he didn't plan to spend money to feed it at all, but planned to save it from Lao Zhu's project and sell it to Xiao Xiaozhu.

"Your Highness, how many words are there in your book?"

"The number of words is different, and the price of a single copy is also different."

"The first book should be printed with [-] characters first."

"How many?"

"500 words, this is just the beginning, there are nearly [-] million words behind!"

Zheng Yuanchang was stunned by the number of words. He thought that Zhu Yunxie was just printing a poem or something, and it took two to three thousand words, but he never expected it to be such a great work.

In this way, I am afraid that it will not be able to cope with the paper and ink of His Majesty.

"No, you have printed too many words, you have to pay more..."

After haggling for half an hour, the two finally settled the deal at a price of [-] Wen per copy.

However, Zhu Yunxi, as Party A, had to pay the full price of the printing before Party B expressed his willingness to work.

Zhu Yunxi didn't want to pay this money, because he didn't have much money in his hand, most of the gifts he received last time were jewelry, decorations and the like, which couldn't be directly used as money.The second reason is that he is not sure that Ming people can like novels like "Dou Po" that are hundreds of years ahead of time. What if they accidentally lose money?

"Uncle Thirteen, since we are doing business in partnership, look at this little money..."

"I paid the 1000 taels, but if I make money in the future, I can only score half of it!"

"no problem!"

Now that the price has been negotiated, the next step is printing.The two immediately rushed back to the Prince's Mansion to pick up the draft, but when passing by the main hall, Zhu Yunxi suddenly stopped.

"Isn't that the personal maid of the Crown Princess? Why is she guarding the entrance of the front hall and sneaking around?"

　The plot is in a transitional stage, and it's a bit dull, so I won't lick my face and beg for votes, let's just let it go.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)