Chapter 303 Will Liu Jin do a loss-making business?
In the square in front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the morning court was over. The ministers retired and walked together in twos and threes, chatting while walking outside the palace.
"His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and Liu Jin are going to build the Qianqing Palace for free. What do you think about this?"
Liu Jian smiled and said to his colleagues that around him, Li Dongyang, Xie Qian, Zhou Jing, and Ma Wensheng were all cabinet ministers or six ministers of the current dynasty.
"It seems that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and Liu Jin have really made a lot of money."
Xie Qian sighed with a smile.
"Actually, this is also a good thing. Since they are willing to spend money to build Qianqing Palace, the national treasury can also have a remaining amount of expenses."
Zhou Jing, the Minister of Household Affairs, was troubled when it came to money. It was not easy for him to be a housekeeper, but this time he showed a rare smile, because the Qianqing Palace was burned down. It would definitely cost a lot to rebuild the Qianqing Palace. It is impossible to say that it all came from the internal funds of Emperor Hongzhi, and some amount came from the national treasury.
It is definitely a happy thing for him to be able to have some expenses left, not to mention the two million taels of silver Liu Jin paid for the private salt farm not long ago. The national treasury finally has some silver. The mice will not starve to death.
"What I'm worried about is whether the Qianqing Palace, built with reinforced concrete, is strong and safe. After all, this is where the emperor lives."
Li Dongyang thought for a while and said.
"There should be no need for us to worry about this aspect. Liu Jin dared to build the Qianqing Palace, so he must have considered this aspect. I am really looking forward to what the Qianqing Palace will look like after it is built."
Liu Jian smiled and said that he had already seen the design plan and drawings, and they were very good, especially since the new Qianqing Palace no longer uses wood to build, which can greatly save the construction period and also save costs.
You must know that all the wood needed to build palaces in the past had to be cut down from the deep mountains and old forests in the Yunnan-Guizhou-Sichuan region. Just to prepare these woods required a lot of manpower to cut them deep in the mountains.
Then it would take a lot of manpower and material resources to transport the wood to the capital. You must know that this was the Ming Dynasty, with inconvenient transportation and no machinery. Everything relied on manpower to transport a large amount of wood to the capital. The cost involved One can imagine.
Building a palace for the emperor would have to be done at the level of the entire country, which would be extremely expensive. This is why every time an ancient emperor wanted to build a palace or a garden, he would be strongly opposed by his ministers.
Without it, it would be a huge waste of national energy.
Some people may ask, why should this wood be cut down from the Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan areas? There are no trees in the mountains around the capital?
In fact, it is not that there are no trees, but that the requirements cannot be met. To build the emperor's palace, the requirements for the huge wooden pillars in front of the palace are very high, and ordinary trees cannot do it.
Moreover, due to early development in the north, after thousands of years of logging, it has been difficult to find wood that can be used to build the emperor's palace. Only the virgin forests in the Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan areas can still find wood that meets the requirements.
Of course, more importantly, in order to show the nobility of the emperor's status, the wood used in the construction of the Qianqing Palace must be precious wood. The most important thing is golden nanmu. Golden nanmu has always been the most ideal and precious among civilized Chinese buildings. , the highest-grade building materials are widely used in the construction of palaces, gardens, and royal tombs.
The production areas of golden nanmu are only found in the south, and because the ancients liked to use it to build houses, the general areas have long been cut down, and you have to go to the virgin forests of Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan to find it.
Now someone is building the Qianqing Palace for Emperor Hongzhi, which can greatly save human, financial and material resources. Ministers like them are also happy to see it, otherwise building a palace will inevitably waste people and money.
On the other side, British Duke Zhang Mao, Cheng Guo Duke Zhu Fu and other military generals and nobles were also walking together, talking and laughing with each other.
"Lao Zhang, what do you think of this?"
Duke Cheng, Zhu Fu, asked Zhang Mao with a smile.
"I'm wondering if Liu Jin has too much money and no place to spend it. The cost of building Qianqing Palace is not a small number. If money is really used to calculate all aspects, it will definitely be an astronomical amount. "
Zhang Mao looked at Zhu Fu, thought for a while and said with a smile: "Liu Jin, is this guy capable of making a loss-making business?"
After hearing Zhang Mao's words, everyone was stunned for a moment, then thought for a moment and said, "How can he still make money by building the Qianqing Palace for His Majesty for free?"
"Even if he cuts corners and uses cement and steel bars to build the Qianqing Palace, the cost is not small. Since it is free, the court will definitely not allocate a copper coin. How can he still make money?"
Zhu Fu, Duke of Chengguo, said in confusion.
"Will Liu Jin cut corners?"
Zhang Mao smiled and shook his head and asked.
"Based on Liu Jin's personality, he would never cut corners, and on the contrary, he built the palace extremely luxuriously."
Xu Guangzuo knew Liu Jin very well and said very confidently.
"Yes, since it is a palace built for His Majesty, it must be the best. No matter how much money is spent, he will not frown."
British Duke Zhang Mao smiled and nodded.
"If that's the case, how can he make money?"
Zhu Fu, Duke of Chengguo, said in confusion.
"Haha, I don't know either, but after everyone goes back, they quickly collect money. All they have to do is keep an eye on Liu Jin. Whatever he does, we will follow suit and keep it to make money."
Zhang Mao smiled and said confidently.
He has already experienced Liu Jin's ability to make money. He can make a lot of money no matter what he does. Zhang Mao's current investment philosophy is to follow Liu Jin, and he will not go wrong in keeping it.
"How about we go talk to Liu Jin?"
Xu Guangzuo thought for a while and suggested.
"That's exactly what I meant~"
"Go~go~"
Zhang Mao and Zhu Fu looked at each other, smiled and said, and also went straight to Liu Jin's house.
In the study room of Liu Jin's house, Liu Jin was holding a pen and silently calculating the benefits he could gain from helping Emperor Hongzhi build the Qianqing Palace.
In the words of the British public Zhang Mao, how could he, Liu Jin, make a loss-making business?
"There are indeed many benefits to working for the emperor. It's no wonder that people in ancient and modern times, both at home and abroad, like to flatter the superiors. Even a few benefits from the superiors are enough to last a lifetime."
Liu Jin silently calculated the benefits he could get from helping Emperor Hongzhi build the Qianqing Palace this time, and couldn't help but feel a sigh of relief in his heart.
"The matter of setting up the salt field has been settled. The next step is to find a place to dry salt in the Bohai Bay. The area where the Changlu Salt Field is located in later generations is very good."
"I didn't expect that Emperor Hongzhi would be thinking about joining in now that he has become enlightened."
"It's easy to run a salt farm, but how to sell the salt after production is the problem. To ensure that the sales price of this salt is lower than other salts, this means that I must control the entire sales connection. It seems that I still need to use The sales model of Tianjin Cement Factory has been changed and an agent system has been established.”
"Only by establishing an agent system can we firmly control the price of salt. Otherwise, if it is just a very simple sales model, the salt produced will inevitably be sold at a high price when it reaches the hands of ordinary people."
Liu Jin took out a pen and silently wrote this down on the paper.
"A ceramic tile factory will definitely be built. After the palace is built for Emperor Hongzhi, the ceramic tiles will definitely become popular. Then, like the glass, they will become the objects of pursuit by the upper class."
"But ceramic tiles don't have much technical content. If I can make them, other porcelain kilns can even make them. The key is quality and price. But it's enough to make the first wave. You can quit when the Red Sea is over. .”
Looking at the Qianqing Palace on the design, Liu Jin silently wrote down the ceramic tiles. This also needs to be done by arranging people to do it. There are large and small porcelain kilns around the capital, but the things fired by the porcelain kilns here are very ordinary. , far inferior to the most famous porcelain kilns of this era such as Dehua kiln in Fujian, Jingdezhen porcelain in Jiangxi, Chuzhou in Zhejiang, and Yixing in Jiangsu, and also inferior to Yongle official kiln.
But the technology is not bad, and there is definitely no problem in firing ceramic tiles. Ceramic tiles are not porcelain after all, and the requirements are much lower.
"The ceramic tile factory and the brick factory can be run together, or they can be put together, and the business can be done together."
"But this weaving factory cannot be put together, it must be separated."
Soon, Liu Jin thought of the weaving factory, which uses a lot of glass windows, and must use curtains.
Although the textile industry in the Ming Dynasty was very developed, and a huge amount of cloth was produced every year, because it was all handmade, the quality varied greatly. More importantly, the specifications of the cloth were limited, so there was no way to use them. Come and use it as curtains for the glass windows of the Qianqing Palace that is being designed.
The Qianqing Palace in the design is very grand, with high floors and very wide windows. The curtain fabrics also need to be manufactured separately. Taking this opportunity, Liu Jin is also preparing to produce the big killer of the Jenny Spinning Machine.
Salt merchants, grain merchants, and tea merchants in the Ming Dynasty made money. In fact, there was also a cloth merchant who was also very profitable, because cloth is related to people's clothing, food, housing, and transportation. The market demand is very large, and the merchants who deal in cloth are also very strong.
Liu Jin took a pen and paper and wrote down item by item. The construction of a huge palace required too many materials, involving many industries and fields, all of which had great potential.
"The most important thing is the steel bars. If the Qianqing Palace had not been built for Emperor Hongzhi, it would have been a long time before he could get the permission to build a steel plant. But now it's better. It's easy to get it."
Liu Jin couldn't help but smile from ear to ear after looking at the dozen or so industries that were about to be established on the paper.
Salt and iron had always been the exclusive domain of the imperial court, and no one could easily get involved. Now all of a sudden, salt farms can be opened privately, and even the steelmaking license has been obtained.
Liu Jin has always wanted to build a steelmaking plant and smelt steel himself.
Because there are so many industries that require the use of steel in many industries under Liu Jin's command, especially in real estate development in Tianjin, steel is almost always indispensable.
However, the production of steel in this era was very small, and the key was that the quality was extremely poor. Many of the iron purchased from various channels were so brittle that they would break if hit with a big hammer.
Friends who have studied chemistry know that this is because iron contains too much carbon, so iron becomes very brittle. This is why ancient iron had to be repeatedly beaten by blacksmiths to remove the carbon before it could be used.
The output of iron in the Ming Dynasty was low, and the output of steel was even lower. All steel was hammered by a blacksmith, so good iron was extremely expensive, and it was too expensive to use it to build houses.
I can't bear it at all.
Steel is also an extremely profitable industry in this era, because the demand for steel is so strong. Weapons and armor, farm tools, kitchen knives, iron pots, etc. are all inseparable from iron.
The past dynasties have kept steel firmly in their hands. Although it can prevent people from rebelling by smelting weapons, it is mostly for the huge profits of steel.
It's just that the smelting technology in ancient times was limited, and the smelted steel was often not enough for the court to use. Therefore, although the salt and iron were specialized, there were still a large number of local gentry and wealthy families in various parts of the Ming Dynasty smelting steel to make huge profits.
This is also the reason why Liu Jin was able to easily get a license to smelt steel, because one aspect was to help the emperor build a palace, and Emperor Hongzhi had to express it. The court didn't have to spend money, manpower, etc., so naturally it didn't matter, anyway.
Liu Jin was not the only one who smelted steel.
Another aspect is that the output of the imperial government's own steel smelting workshops was too low, each had its own tasks, and there was simply no excess production capacity to meet Liu Jin's needs for building the Qianqing Palace.
"A steel plant needs to be carefully planned. After planning, it is best to choose a place closer to the iron ore producing area, so as to greatly save freight."
Thinking of the steel plant, Liu Jin took out a map again. This was a map Liu Jin made with his golden finger. It showed in detail the distribution of mineral resources in various places.
"When Shougang Group in later generations just started, all the iron ore came from Miyun. Although the output of Miyun iron ore cannot be compared with other large-scale iron mines in the world, it is absolutely enough to meet the current demand."
Soon, Liu Jin drew a circle in Miyun near the capital. Miyun Iron Mine was also famous in later generations.
"Well, I will be very busy next. There are so many industries to be developed at once, and Tianjin and Beijing are running back and forth."
After careful calculation, Liu Jin also began to make a detailed plan for the next itinerary.
But before Liu Jin could make plans, a hearty voice came over.
"You stinky boy, you stinky boy, you don't tell Lao Zhang even if you have a profitable business, it's so meaningless."
Hearing this voice, Liu Jin quickly put away the paper on the desk.