Chapter 144 The First Government Office of the Ming Dynasty
Early in the morning, after Zhu Chong arrived at the Baochao Tizhusi to report for duty, he stopped Zhang Quan who was about to leave.
"How are the things I asked you to do before going?"
"My Lord, the item you requested is not yet on the market, so it is difficult to purchase. Therefore..."
Zhu Chong nodded. "Keep a close eye on it and continue to purchase the goods according to the quantity I specified until the quantity is sufficient. Then call Old Liu over."
Zhang Quan agreed and went out. Not long after, Old Liu came in to greet Zhu Chong.
"Sir, you called me?"
"Well, the lime kilns are starting to produce lime, right? How's the cement production? And what's the situation at the Ministry of Industry now?"
Old Liu answered a series of questions without any discomfort.
"I'm keeping an eye on all the lime kilns. They're all producing lime according to quality and quantity. It's just that cement production hasn't increased yet. The main reason is that we don't have enough manpower right now, and we're still in the process of training them. As for the Ministry of Industry, they already have people on board, so it shouldn't be a big problem."
Zhu Chong nodded when he heard this and handed over a drawing in front of him. "Then take a look at this and see if you can do it."
Old Liu took it and looked at it, and found it was a strange cylinder. Old Liu looked at it for a long time but couldn't figure out what it was for, but he could clearly recognize the words "steel furnace" written on it.
With coal mines and cement, Zhu Chong of course had to prepare to start steelmaking, which was an important part of his plan.
Zhu Chong planned to build a railway in Daming to use together with the straight road. This two-pronged approach would liberate the labor force to the maximum extent and further accelerate the Northern Expedition.
However, at that time in the Ming Dynasty, the annual iron production was less than 20 million jin, which also included various scrap irons. As for steel, it goes without saying that it was purely artificially made and the annual production was astonishingly low.
Therefore, in today's Ming Dynasty, the value of steel can even catch up with precious metals. After all, things are valuable because they are rare. Zhu Chong planned to take advantage of this feature and apply it to treasure notes.
As for the railway, because of problems with craftsmen and technology, Zhu Chong decided to start from the coal mining area and lay a railway about three miles long in the mining area to test the waters. If the technology and cost were within a controllable range, he would write a letter to Lao Zhu.
Therefore, it is necessary to include the steelmaking furnace in the construction schedule. For this purpose, Zhu Chong specially exchanged the drawings from the system, which is the one shown to Old Liu.
"This is a steelmaking furnace. With this thing, our Baochao Tizhusi will become the most important government office in the Ming Dynasty!"
When saying this, Zhu Chong was very confident. After all, this steelmaking furnace was the only one of its kind in the Ming Dynasty. Once it was successfully made, Zhu would definitely treat it like a treasure.
However, the production of a steel furnace is not easy. According to the requirements on the drawings, the current Ming Dynasty may need the entire country's strength to produce it. But it just so happens that Zhu Chong can mobilize the entire country's strength now. After all, the Ministry of Industry owes him a big favor.
"Sir, can this big guy really produce the steel you mentioned?" Old Liu was skeptical about Zhu Chong's blueprint. After all, it was an area he was not very good at.
In fact, not to mention him, even in the Ministry of Industry, it is not certain that anyone could understand the process on the drawing, especially the craftsmen who had almost no experience with this semi-modern steelmaking method.
It was also Zhu Yuanzhang's fault. In many dynasties before the Ming Dynasty, salt and iron were always government-run and private enterprises were not allowed.
As a result, when it came to Zhu Yuanzhang, he actually allowed the people to smelt iron, under the pretext of sharing wealth with the people, hoping that the people would become rich through iron smelting.
But the result was completely opposite to what he thought. The people never became rich because of iron smelting. Instead, the collusion between officials and businessmen continued to swallow up small private workshops, making them earn a lot of money.
Because of this, private iron smelting was in complete chaos. The result of collusion between officials and businessmen for profit was that those people became more and more daring, and finally their ambitions expanded, leading to the overthrow of the Ming Dynasty.
So in Zhu Chong's view, Zhu Yuanzhang was actually incompetent to be the emperor. Whenever he was in power, he should not have done things on the spur of the moment and should have left something that could make money for the royal family. In the end, it would have been impossible for the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty to commit suicide in the mountains.
If the royal family was not so poor that it could not even pay the soldiers, and the emperor could not borrow money from his ministers, but once the rebels entered the capital, he seized tens of millions of taels of silver from those ministers, how could the Ming Dynasty have lasted only a mere two hundred years?
Therefore, Zhu Chong made up his mind that no matter whether it was cement or steel, it would only be government-run in the future and would never be privately run. Anyone who dared to lay a hand on it would have his entire family killed!
Therefore, no matter how difficult the situation is now, Zhu Chong will grit his teeth and solve it. If he suffers a little now, he will suffer less in the future.
When the production of the steel furnace had begun to take shape, Zhu Chong went directly to the palace to discuss the next steps of the Baochao Tizhusi with Zhu Yuanzhang.
Old Zhu hadn't seen Zhu Chong for a while. Seeing Zhu Chong take the initiative to enter the palace, he was actually quite happy.
"Second brother, why did you think of coming to the palace to see me? I thought you didn't dare to come to the palace, for fear that I would ask you about the quality of your treasure banknotes!"
"Your Majesty, you are wronging me. I have been living and eating at the Baochao Tizhusi recently. I haven't been sleeping well and I haven't enjoyed my meals. Look, I have lost a lot of weight..."
Zhu Chong smiled awkwardly. He could tell that there was something else behind what Old Zhu said, but he pretended not to understand and then played Tai Chi with Old Zhu.
As expected, Old Zhu couldn't hold back his temper and said straight to the point, "Alright, alright, stop talking nonsense with me. Tell me, what do you want to do with me in the palace?"
"Father, I have already prepared a plan for the production of a new batch of banknotes. Please review it and, if you would like to see if it is convenient for you, please grant me your calligraphy. I will have your words engraved on the banknotes."
Hearing what Zhu Chong said, Old Zhu raised his eyebrows, took the proposal written by Zhu Chong, and read it at a glance.
After taking a look at it, Old Zhu's eyes became brighter and brighter, especially when he saw the face value and style of the treasure notes set by Zhu Chong, he couldn't help but marvel at it.
"Did you draw all this? I didn't realize you know so much. You drew it really well, especially inside that little circle. There are so many weird things. What are they called, Ming Dynasty coins? You're so creative!"
With Zhu's vision, he could naturally see that Zhu Chong had put a lot of thought into the treasure notes.
This kind of thinking is not only what Zhu Chong mentioned to Lao Zhu before, but also Zhu Chong's comprehensive design of Baochao and standardized management of face value.
Based on the content shown in this report, Zhu Yuanzhang no longer has to worry about the occurrence of something like what Zhu Chong said before, that the treasure notes will affect the Ming Dynasty's national destiny.
He would not doubt that Zhu Chong could not promote the Ming Dynasty's treasure notes to the surrounding vassal states and make the vassal states the places where the Ming Dynasty's treasure notes would circulate in the future!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
