The Prosperous Era of Longwan

Wei Guangde returned home in the evening. After getting off the sedan chair, Zhang Ji came over and whispered in his ear: "Master, this afternoon the Chengguo Duke's Mansion, the British Duke's Mansion and the Dingguo Duke's Mansion all sent people to deliver the message, saying The family wants to come over and have a talk.”

Wei Guangde frowned when he heard that three princes came to his house.

"Do you know what the reason is?"

Wei Guangde has thought about it just now. It seems that nothing has happened recently to provoke Xungui.

Even if it involves the issue of a wealthy man's land and his father, haven't they realized at this time that it can't be hidden, and there's no point in looking for him.

"Well, after the housekeeper came over, the people below also asked about it, and they all said they didn't know."

Zhang Ji replied in a low voice: 'However, I guess it's not that simple.

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Normally a person from the palace would be considered normal, but all of a sudden all the princes in the capital came looking for him. This was not right no matter how you looked at it. ’

Wei Guangde had already received the greeting cards from the three families from Zhang Ji, but he was still stunned when he read the greeting cards from Chengguo Duke's Mansion.

Because it is not Duke Cheng Guo but the crown prince Zhu Yingzhen written directly on it.

After a while, Wei Guangde realized that this man named Zhu Yingzhen should be the son of Zhu Shitai, the former Duke of Chengguo, and the grandson of Zhu Xizhong.

In the first year of Wanli, Zhu Xizhong died of illness.

In the second year of Wanli, his son Zhu Shitai ascended the throne in April and died of illness in September.

Then, naturally it was Zhu Yingzhen's turn to attack the title.

However, the court had rules that no one could ascend to the title of nobility under the age of 18, so Zhu Yingzhen could only take charge of the Chengguo Palace as the eldest son of Duke Chengguo, becoming the de facto Duke Chengguo.

Thinking of this, Wei Guangde suddenly asked Zhang Ji: "How old is Zhu Yingzhen, the eldest son of Chengguo Palace? I remember he is less than fifteen."

Wei Guangde was puzzled. Could it be that several princes came here to help Zhu Yingzhen and let him seize the title as soon as possible?

But there is no reason for this. The imperial court has its own laws. Even if he is in charge of the cabinet, there is no way to help him accomplish this. The Ministry of Rites will not agree to it in the first place.

Under normal circumstances, when Zhu Yingzhen reaches his age, the Ministry of Rites will naturally have to apply for his title.

If they don't do it, or delay it deliberately, those in the Ministry of Rites will no longer be able to stay in the officialdom.

Although the government of the Ming Dynasty was controlled by civilian officials, the emperor would never allow civilian officials to bully nobles, let alone a first-class Duke like Cheng Guogong.

"Fifteen."

Zhang Ji thought for a while and said.

It can only be said that because there is no such thing as Xijue, the Chengguo Duke's mansion has been relatively low-key in the past two years, so Wei Guangde feels a little strange.

After all, during the Zhu Xizhong period, Emperor Jiajing sent him to perform many ceremonies as the emperor's representative.

Well, now most of these errands fall on Duke Xu Wenbi of Ding and Duke Zhang Rong of England.

"Then get ready and someone will come over later to entertain you."

Wei Guangde said something and quickly walked into the backyard.

When Wei Guangde walked into the backyard, Xu Jianglan greeted him, and he was also concerned about whether something happened to the court recently.

"Why, you know that three princes are coming to our house tonight, so you are nervous?"

Wei Guangde guessed as soon as he heard it, how could the news in the mansion be hidden from the head matron.

"Yes, suddenly everyone came to our house, so there must be something wrong."

Xu Jianglan didn't hide it and said directly.

You have to say that it's normal for Duke Ding to come and sit around at home. They are all relatives anyway, but if Duke Ying and Duke Cheng come together, then it must be a matter of honor.

"Hey, don't think too much, I'll find out when I go see them tonight.

Anyway, nothing happened in the court recently that had anything to do with them.

If we insist on saying that there is, then it is a matter of clearing the land. Maybe they have many farms outside. "

Wei Guangde couldn't imagine that there was something going on with the nobles that would cause the three princes to come to him.

The Duke of Wei in Jinling knew about the matter of clearing his father's land, but he only sent a letter to ask.

Wei Guangde made it clear what was at stake and explained that it was a matter of great importance to the imperial court, so even if he didn't support it, don't make small moves.

It's nothing more than a little extra money, but even if the Duke of Wei spends a lot on extraneous things every year, it's impossible not to get some tax money.

In fact, until now, there is no specific regulation on whether the new tax law will be determined based on local expenditures or whether Jiangnan and Jiangbei will uniformly tax according to the field level.

Wei Guangde hopes that after the land is cleared, the land grade will be directly determined and a unified tax will be levied. No matter whose hands the land ends up in, it will be taxed according to the same standard.

In this way, the issue of land annexation can be avoided directly.

You can annex land as much as you want, but you have to pay the taxes corresponding to this land according to the imperial court's rated taxes.

With the field data as the basis, the court's annual taxes are basically guaranteed.

Unless there is a natural disaster and the court exempts local taxes, the tax bank must be paid according to this figure.

However, the current Ming Dynasty does not have such a system. The imperial court only collects taxes and does not care about local government expenditures, so local governments will allocate additional miscellaneous taxes to the local area as needed.

This leads to the fact that when encountering honest officials, local people will bear less taxes, but when encountering greedy officials who impose excessive taxes, the taxes borne by the people will be heavy.

Local governments have too much power over taxes, and Wei Guangde believes that they should be taken back.

According to the prefectures, counties and cities, the annual local fiscal expenditures are determined, and some of the collected taxes are kept in the local area, and then handed over to the court.

Although the idea is good, he also knows that once it is decided, it is equivalent to cutting off the way for the officials below to make money.

If you want to make money, you can find ways to increase miscellaneous taxes and levies. This is how the so-called "three years of clean prefecture, 100,000 silver coins" came from.

If you take away the right to increase taxes from the local area, you can imagine that the local officials will fight him to the death.

Not to mention Wei Guangde, even Zhang Juzheng was hesitant when he heard Wei Guangde's idea.

The key is that the situation in each place is different.

It's okay for wealthy places, some expenses can be raised by local gentry, but when it comes to poor places, I'm afraid there will be a lot of trouble.

It's a project that should be repaired or not, the government says there is no money and can't raise the money. In the end, something big happened, who is to blame?

However, at night, Wei Guangde was stunned when he saw the three dukes chatting.

Holding the woolen cloth handed over by Duke Dingguo Xu Wenbi, he was a little stunned.

"You mean you also want to do this woolen cloth business?"

Wei Guangde asked hesitantly.

"Yes, Shandai, you have always told us that we can dig out as much silver as possible from the fields. It is better to concentrate on setting up workshops and selling goods overseas like you.

We listened to you. We have not purchased fields in the past few years. We have used the silver to set up workshops. We have not even done the salt business."

Duke Dingguo Xu Wenbi began to complain on behalf of the nobles, "Although we are all nobles and look like we have a big family, the expenses are actually very large. If there is no income, the mansion will be in trouble."

Wei Guangde looked at the three people. Zhang Rong was not young, in his forties and fifties, Xu Wenbi was in his thirties, about the same age as him, and there was Zhu Yingzhen, a fifteen-year-old kid, and he felt a little overwhelmed.

After thinking about it, it seems that the nobles have not bought land on a large scale near the capital recently, and I don’t know about places farther away.

These mansions do have huge expenses.

Although some mansions seem to have only a few masters, they are the lineage of the inherited nobility.

They are all generations of dukes, and have already branched out into countless branches.

In fact, most of these people still rely on the mansions for their lives, and few have set up their own families.

For these people, the mansions also pay monthly wages according to a certain level every month to support them.

It is impossible for each family to have no worries about food and drink for the main branch, while letting the clan members have no clothes to cover their bodies and no food to fill their stomachs. If it gets out, will they still have face?

The royal family is so fertile, and the situation of these mansions is similar, except that each family is responsible for it.

The capable ones will get some official positions in the court for their children.

For those who are lazy and gluttonous, they will be sent away with some monthly wages, as long as they don’t starve to death.

If you want to say how much money these dukes really have, it is not necessarily true.

"How did you come up with this business?"

Wei Guangde was actually most puzzled about the woolen business. How did these nobles discover it?

How long has it been on the market?

I'm afraid that they haven't even had time to put it on the shelves of the shops. They are like cats that smell blood, and they know it, and they even find it here.

"Wei Gelao, there is no business that you invest in that doesn't make money.

Last year, I heard from my subordinates that the Northern Chamber of Commerce has made a cloth that is very effective in keeping out the cold, but I haven't seen the product in the market after searching the market."

At this time, Duke of England Zhang Rong spoke.

"Northern Chamber of Commerce?"

When Wei Guangde heard them mention this word, his eyes turned to the Duke of Cheng, Zhu Yingzhen, who had been silent all the time.

The child did not inherit the title, but was just a prince. Although they were both from the Duke's Mansion, they naturally couldn't speak like the other two adult Dukes, so they were relatively quiet after entering.

At this time, seeing Wei Guangde looking at him, Zhu Yingzhen did not lower his head guiltily or avoid Wei Guangde's gaze, but boldly greeted him.

Wei Guangde retracted his gaze. He had guessed that if they investigated the Northern Chamber of Commerce, they would definitely find out that he was one of the shareholders of this Chamber of Commerce, and his share was not low.

As for why Wei Guangde looked at Zhu Yingzhen, it was naturally because he had covered up. It was said that ordinary people could not find out about his mansion.

Although everyone knew that Wei Guangde was involved in business, Wei Guangde had always done a good job of covering up.

In other words, the omnipresent Jinyiwei might know what business the Northern Chamber of Commerce was running, after all, they had to buy back a lot of wool from the northern grasslands.

And that direction has always been the focus of Jinyiwei's attention.

It is worth mentioning that the former Chengguogong Zhu Shitai was actually the grandson of Lu Bing, and the Chengguogong Mansion had a deep relationship with the Lu family.

Because of Yu Dayou's relationship, Wei Guangde helped Lu Bing in his twilight years, and even helped the Lu family after his death, got in touch with the Lu family, and was able to ask Jinyiwei to help with things.

As the backer of the Lu family, they did not turn to Yan Song and Xu Jie later, and were sacrificed by Gao Gong during the Longqing period, using the Lu family's crimes to blame Xu Jie.

In order to preserve his family, Lu Bing chose to marry into the three families of Cheng Guogong, Yan Song and Xu Jie.

Originally, he thought that such a marriage relationship was enough to ensure the safety of the Lu family.

Who would have thought that after the fall of the Yan family, they were directly liquidated by Emperor Jiajing, and in the Longqing Dynasty, Gao Gong wanted to pursue Xu Jie, and also took the Lu family with him because of the marriage relationship.

The Lu family was actually confiscated when Gao Gong took action against Xu Jie in the fourth year of Longqing.

"How do you want to cooperate?"

Wei Guangde was too lazy to think about other things, whether Lu Yi had leaked his information.

"Shandai, we know that the Northern Chamber of Commerce has opened up various connections and can continuously transport a large amount of wool from the northern grasslands, and woolen cloth is made of wool.

At the same time, the Northern Chamber of Commerce has also established many workshops to produce woolen cloth in large quantities.

If we directly participate in purchasing from the northern grasslands, we are worried that the Tartars will take the opportunity to raise the price of wool, and we need to build new workshops, which is really a waste of time."

Dingguogong Xu Wenbi spoke at this time, but at this point, Wei Guangde also understood that they wanted to directly invest in the Northern Chamber of Commerce and pick up ready-made ones.

As for wanting to forcibly buy the Northern Chamber of Commerce, Wei Guangde believed that even if the nobles united, they would not have the courage.

It takes a lot of courage to directly rob money from the second assistant of the cabinet.

"You want to directly invest in the Northern Chamber of Commerce?"

Wei Guangde interrupted Xu Wenbi and asked.

"Hehe."

Being interrupted, Xu Wenbi was not annoyed, but just laughed dryly.

If it is someone else's property, they will naturally find a way to snatch it.

The nobles have done these things more than once or twice. If there is a chance to make money, they will never be soft-handed.

Just like the salt policy of the Ming Dynasty, these nobles have been involved in the process of corruption.

Why did the Kaizhongfa Association decline? It was because the salt packages were taken away by the powerful. Those salt merchants who were transporting grain to the border had salt permits but could not get salt packages.

It seems that the nobles can avoid vicious competition by directly participating in the Northern Chamber of Commerce, but in fact, they also have the meaning of picking up bargains.

Investing can see profits, make money, and open up the joints early, so they don't need to invest energy to make these preliminary preparations. Why not do it?

"Which nobles want to participate in the shares?"

Wei Guangde just continued to ask, with a blank expression on his face, but he was also thinking about this in his heart.

Before, Wei Guangde planned to use two years to form a trend through the royal family and his large-scale use of woolen cloth to influence the choice of winter clothing fabrics in the Ming Dynasty.

If woolen cloth really occupies the market, the existing textile workshops will definitely not be enough, and we have to continue to invest money to build workshops. In fact, the money that can be obtained in the short term will not be much.

However, if we introduce nobles and let them invest money to expand the production scale of the workshop, although the shares will be affected, the money will not be much less.

Following Xu Wenbi's introduction, the nobles in the city of Sijiu more or less want to participate.

"In this way, the Northern Chamber of Commerce can increase its shares by 30% in principle, and no more than 35% at most.

As for how much silver each share is worth, discuss it with the shopkeeper of the Chamber of Commerce.

You also select a few people and let them directly negotiate the price with the shopkeeper of Northern Shanghai.

I don't care how you divide it, but you can naturally invest in shares after the price is agreed, and then you can share the dividends."

Wei Guangde said, "The silver and resources we invested in the early stage are not small, and this price will not be cheap."

After getting Wei Guangde's answer, the three people discussed for a while and agreed.

After all, it would take at least a few years to build a new organization like the Northern Chamber of Commerce, and it would be very troublesome.

Directly buying shares would save a lot of trouble. (End of this chapter)