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

Some people are foolishly loyal to the Yuan Dynasty and have the Shouyang Mountain mentality of not eating open millet. Some people simply look down on him, thinking that he was of a rough origin, and treat the literati like cattle and horses.

Of course, they were not wrong. In Lao Zhu's eyes, no matter who you are, you are just a tool.

There was an incident recorded in Da Gao Li. The government recommended Yao Shurun ​​and Wang E to be officials. However, they were unwilling to go to Beijing to be officials. They resorted to some tricks in private. When Zhu Yuanzhang learned about it, they immediately killed them.

In addition to the three major cases in the Hongwu period, no matter who was involved, Lao Zhu would never show mercy, and the people he killed would leave rivers of blood and heads rolling.

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

However, Lao Zhu is weird. The less you come, the more he wants to recruit you. If it doesn't work once, then twice, if it doesn't work twice, then multiple times. If you don't come many times, it means you look down on our Lao Zhu, so he must be killed!

"The Crown Princess, one of the people recommended by the lower officials, is Yang Xinluo, the son of Yang Weizhen in Fengqiao, Shaoxing. This person took advantage of his father's reputation for not serving in official positions for several times. Although he was not famous in the court, he had a very high reputation among the people.

Jiangnan literati 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. His Majesty killed Gao Qi because of a poem, which caused great dissatisfaction among the literati in Jiangnan, and the world cherished him."

"If the Crown Princess can recruit talented people to be used by His Highness Yunwen, then all the literati in the south of the Yangtze River will be convinced!"

"Besides the two of them, there is another person, Qin Hengbo, the younger brother of Qin Yubo. However, this man is fond of practicing mysticism and likes to travel to famous mountains and rivers. No one knows his whereabouts."

"If the Crown Princess is lucky enough to recruit this person, she can also add a lot of help to His Highness Yunwen!"

Lu secretly wrote down the names of several people, then thanked Huang Zicheng for his advice, and led everyone to linger for a while before returning to the Prince's Mansion, looking at the beams of the main hall in a daze.

Although Huang Zicheng didn't say it explicitly, how could Lu's intelligence not detect its hidden meaning?

The so-called risking one's life to survive, if translated into vernacular, isn't it just a shrew who cried, made trouble, and hanged herself.

Since she had already said these words in front of the Dragon-Breaking Stone, if she had not shown anything, she would have been ridiculed by the world, and even that old thing would have felt disgusted by it.

It's just that hanging is a technical job, and you might risk your own life in it.

Mrs. Lu walked around the place where Zhu Biao's coffin had been placed for half an hour, and then she decided to hang herself up for the old man and the world to see!

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

"Dongmei, how have I treated you these years?"

As soon as Dongmei heard this, she knew she had something important to do, and immediately expressed her loyalty to Mr. Lu.

"The empress is as kind as a mountain to my slave. I can't repay you even if I go to the mountain of swords or to the bottom of the frying pan!"

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

"ah?"

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

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

Lu interrupted Dongmei's crying.

"I'm just asking you to hang yourself, and I will order someone to rescue you right away. I'm not asking you to hang yourself!"

When Dongmei heard this, she felt better.

While Mrs. Lu and the palace maids were hiding in the Prince's Mansion practicing their hanging skills, Zhu Yunxi was talking about money-making plans with his dear Thirteenth Uncle in the main hall.

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

"What's wrong, have you written a Newspeak script?"

"Yes!"

When Zhu Gui heard this, she felt a little excited.

"Where is it? Bring it over quickly so I can appreciate it!"

"Uncle Thirteen, I have hidden 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 the most afraid of trouble, he frowned when he heard this.

"Didn't the store owner tell me when I was in the bookstore last time that you can just leave the books to them to sell on your behalf? There is no need to bother opening a Laoshizi bookstore."

Zhu Yunxi continued to fool around.

"Uncle Thirteen, how much less money will we make if we give the book to them to sell on our behalf?"

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

When Zhu Gui mentioned making money, he immediately became interested, and his eyes turned red as he was short of money.

The last time he sent something to Zhu Yunxi for his mother-in-law, he secretly found three thousand taels of silver. If the jade cabbage wasn't too eye-catching and hard to get rid of, he would have even thought of selling it.

"Yes!"

"Then tell me what we should do now!"

"Uncle Thirteen, that's what I think. If we want to do it, let's use a big pen. First find a suitable shop outside the palace, and then hire a group of craftsmen to print books for us!"

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

The more Zhu Gui listened, the more excited he became, feeling eager to give it a try.

"The shop floor is not valuable. It only costs a few hundred taels a year to rent it."

"It's not difficult to print a book. I'm familiar with Ambassador Zheng from the Banking Bureau. I just gave them some reward money and they printed 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, so he could save a lot of money.

"How about we take a leave of absence from the husband and go to the bank first?"

"OK!"

The two of them had decided on a plan, and then they escaped through urine and feces and disappeared into the main hall.

Qi Tai completely pretended not to see through the two people's tricks and continued to read on his own.

He has always been lenient with his students. As long as they can complete their homework, he is never demanding on disciplinary matters.

The so-called silver manufacturing bureau is not located in the palace, but next to the Fifth Army Governor's Mansion. It is a branch divided from the original weapons manufacturing bureau.

After all, this thing is smoky all day long and can easily cause fire. How could Lao Zhu build it in the palace?

When the two arrived, a big order had just been received inside and outside the Banking Bureau. Everyone was busy with formalities and proofreading, except for Ambassador Zheng Yuanchang, who was idle and stepped in casually.

"Your Highness Prince Yu, what good objects do you want to make this time?"

Zhu Gui's face turned red with embarrassment when he heard this. Half of the three thousand taels of silver he had found last time were sent here to be cast into silver leaves, one for each cent, so that he could use them more conveniently.

Now that the sufferer was standing next to him, he felt a little embarrassed.

"Ahem... We want to print some books this time. I wonder if Ambassador Zheng will have too much time?"

"Printing books..."

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

The main reason is that this thing is time-consuming and labor-intensive, and there is not much money left.

Relatively speaking, making gold and silver utensils and jewelry is much better. The last time he made 1,500 taels of silver leaves for King Yu, he earned 300 taels from this alone!

"His Royal Highness, Prince Yu, I'm not trying to shirk you. Your Majesty actually asked us to print 10,000 sets of the Diamond Sutra in order to pray for Prince Yiwen."

"As you saw when you first came in, the entire banking bureau is so busy that we really can't spare anyone to help you print your books!"

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

However, before he could speak, he heard Zhu Yunxi say something.

“We don’t print in vain, we spend money!”

As soon as Zheng Yuanchang heard that the other party said he was willing to spend money, he felt less resistant.

"I wonder how many sets your Highness wants to print, and how much is the estimated cost for each set?"

"Ten thousand sets will be printed for the time being, and more may be added in the future!"

"The cost..."

"Please quote a price first. We don't have to use you. If the price you quote 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 surprised.

When did His Highness the Third Emperor Sun become so shrewd and know how to bargain?

You must know that the nobles in the palace are best deceived. Basically, they don't believe what they say.

"Your Highness, how about I give it to you at 20% off the market price?"

Zhu Yunxi shook his head and expressed his displeasure, and Zheng Yuanchang continued to reduce prices.

"Then it's 30% off. You have to let us earn some money to live on. If it's too little, the official and the craftsmen under him won't be able to explain it!"

"Then give it 30% off. Don't coax me. I will send someone to inquire outside the palace. If someone is cheaper than you, I won't 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 a penny more!"

Zheng Yuanchang said this, but he was really thinking proudly in his heart about how to report more losses to the superiors and save money on paper and ink.
To be continued...