Chen Shuren promised his parents that he would definitely marry a perfectly matched wife this year.
Shen Tingyang and Xu no longer had an entanglement, allowing him to ruin his reputation in terms of personal ethics, and he no longer pursued Li Xiangjun for his "funny and charming behavior".
His son's political strategy is already superior to his. Since it is a show for political purposes, there is nothing for him to interfere with.
As for forcing Shen Shuren to immediately go to Zhou Yanru's place to pay homage to the dock, Shen Tingyang stopped pressing him and let his son control the pace himself.
In the next few days, Shen Shuren was temporarily free to collect information every day, understand the current situation, and make plans before taking action.
In the eyes of outsiders, he is obsessed with women and hangs out with Chen Yuanyuan, Dong Xiaowan and Li Xiangjun every day.
Among the girls, Li Xiangjun was the most moved. In order to prevent her from being punished and implicated, the young master promised to the master and his wife that he would get married this year. What a sacrifice it was. So in the past few days, she tried her best to please him and changed her mind. Do your best to serve the young master well.
Chen Shuren was also very open-minded and told her not to take it to heart, and said calmly every time:
This is what you deserve. You cooperate with me in the overall situation, how can I let you be wronged? Although I, Shen, am a lustful person, I will never let my woman suffer.
Li Xiangjun was even more moved after hearing this, but there was still a faint sense of guilt in her heart about being with the young master every day lately:
"Young master, Sister Xiaowan has not seen you for a year. It's time for you to accompany her. You are already good enough to the slave family. In fact, as long as you can rub the master's shoulders and beat his legs every day, the slave family will be satisfied."
Chen Shuren was not polite to her either. He would calmly explain while raising and lowering his hands:
"Don't worry, I just want to spend more time with Xiaowan and her daughter during the day. She is only four months old after giving birth, so it would be better to take care of her body more, rather than having fun on the bed. I will take her back to Wuchang this time, and we will be together in the future. Stay safe and the days ahead will be long."
Li Xiangjun didn't know what was going on, so she didn't say much. She didn't want to push the young master out at first, but she was just a little uneasy.
However, Shen Shuren knew something about modern medicine. He knew that postpartum care for women in ancient times was not as scientific as modern times, so he should be more conservative. According to the rule, it is better not to have sex for half a year after giving birth, and let Xiaowan rest for another two months. Anyway, he has no shortage of women. .
Moreover, Dong Xiaowan is different from Chen Yuanyuan and Li Xiangjun after all.
Chen and Li were sold as emaciated horses when they were young. Dong Xiaowan came from a well-to-do family. Her parents died when she was a teenager, and her family went bankrupt. Therefore, she did not learn the skills to please men.
Chen Yuanyuan and she were considered sisters in need. After returning this time, she was very concerned about her recovery and quietly helped her conduct an in-depth physical examination.
After understanding this clearly, Chen Yuanyuan secretly taught Dong Xiaowan how to practice the sitting urn method to help her tighten her body again and relieve postpartum sequelae - these were secret techniques that only Yangzhou thin horses would be trained hard by slaves at that time.
After Shen Shuren found out, he didn't mind at all. He is a modern soul and is very open-minded and accepting of these issues.
Seeing that Chen Yuanyuan was teaching hard every day and was not very scientific, Shen Shuren occasionally used his clever skills and spent a day or two to come up with a sketch and asked the maid in the house to help build a gadget.
It looks similar to the "pelvic floor muscle rehabilitation training device" sold on Douyin in later generations. It is an elastic device that women can clamp on the inside of their thighs to exercise muscle clamping strength——
Don’t wonder why Shen Shuren does this. Before he time traveled, of course he was also a womanizer. So he would also find those marginal yoga girl videos on Douyin, and like most womanizers, he would leave messages like “Brothers” I’m here to learn yoga again today (dog head)”
It’s not surprising that such a well-informed person invented such a small gadget. It’s just that in ancient times, there was a lack of high-elastic materials, so they used beef tendon and bamboo slices instead, which completed the urn function of the Ming Dynasty for hundreds of years.
After the things were made, Shen Shuren's women immediately started practicing secretly.
Chen Shuren stayed with Li Xiangjun at night and Dong Xiaowan and his daughter during the day. The family was happy and enjoying the happiness of family harmony.
Li Xiangjun was idle and bored during the day, and occasionally went out to meet Bian Yujing at her residence. This was to reassure her sister and not worry about her situation in the Shen family.
Bian Yujing was very happy for her sister when she learned that Mr. Shen protected his sister so much, withstood the pressure from his parents and never let his woman suffer.
Shen Shuren teased her daughter every day and talked to Dong Xiaowan about her improved "Xiaowan Spinning Machine". She learned about the current business situation of the spinning machine and gave some detailed optimization suggestions.
Dong Xiaowan was born into a wealthy businessman's family in the textile industry, and he had some talent in this area. After two years in the Shen family, he broadened his horizons and learned the basic skills of doing business. Now he has given birth to a concubine for Shen Shuren. Has a higher status in the family.
Both the Shen family's father and son were officials, and their business was originally handled by the branch officials and housekeepers. Now, they took advantage of the situation and handed over all the weaving workshops, embroidery workshops, spinning workshops, and all the textile business in the family to Dong Xiaowan. .
The specific matters outside are handled by the shopkeepers, the daily accounts are summarized, and the general direction of the industry trends are all reported by the maid to the "young lady" for record.
Shen Shuren took a brief look at the accounts and learned that the Shen family's net profit from the textile industry alone this year exceeded one million taels, which was already higher than the family's original profit from sea trade——
Of course, in the two and a half years since Shen Shuren traveled over, the scale of the family's sea trade has also increased by at least several percent every year. Especially since it has officially taken on the imperial water transportation to sea, the scale of the Shen family's sea fleet can increase by one hundred percent every year. There were many ships. Only then was the textile industry’s revenue overtaken.
There are some accounts that I don’t know, and I’m shocked when I look at them. This year, the Shen family’s self-operated spinning profit reached 200,000 taels, and the self-operated silk and satin weaving and cotton weaving profits were 900,000 taels, which almost accounted for the entire Suzhou Prefecture. accounts for less than half of the government's textile industry profits.
The net profit from the take-out Xiaowan spinning machine is 600,000 taels, and the net profit from the take-out shuttle loom is 450,000 taels. From this data, it can be clearly seen that the sales of looms have begun to slow down. The new spinning machines that just appeared this year are extremely popular, so the price of the machines is extremely high, the sales are very good, and the profit of a single machine is several times that of the loom.
In the Shen family's self-operated textile workshop, the income from spinning is relatively low, apparently because it is still in the early stages of investment and the growth curve is still in the stage of expanding production capacity, so the output of cotton yarn reeling is not high.
When Chen Shuren saw this number, he couldn't help but curiously asked a few questions: "After you built this new spinning machine, other big players also asked us to buy new machines at high prices? No one thought about how many units to buy. After that, go back and slowly dismantle it and then copy it?
Are we still cooperating with Songjiang Xuge’s hometown two years ago, relying on the local giants to share the profits and help us fight against small imitators?”
Shen Shuren couldn't help but be curious, because the accounts showed that the new looms sold by the Shen family for takeout cost more than one hundred taels of silver each, and the cost was nothing more than some wood, labor, and auxiliary materials, which did not cost more than ten or twenty taels. , this is such a huge profit, the net profit is at least eighty taels per unit.
To be able to sell like this, there must be a unique monopoly method, otherwise it would be unimaginable in ancient times without patent laws.
When he built the flying shuttle loom two years ago, Shen Shuren relied on cooperation with the Xu Guangqi family, using the Xu family's power in Songjiang Prefecture to share the spoils and suppress those who did not have the foresight to copy the machines. The Shen family in Suzhou Prefecture His power and his hands and eyes were all powerful, so he could barely control it.
Dong Xiaowan also knew that her husband had not understood it, so she decrypted it very proudly: "The Nu family's method this time is very similar to the method used to promote shuttle looms two years ago. In Songjiang Mansion, we still cooperate with the old Xuge family. of.
However, we adjusted the specific measures to 'keep the existence of the new machine secret from the outside world and ensure that Suzhou, Songjiang and other prefectures only privately notify one of the most powerful wealthy families'.
That is to say, we only let them know that we have built this new machine, and then use "only sell it to them in this house" in exchange for their promise not to copy it, buy our machine at a high price, and follow us, and each family will eat a house. of eating alone.
Although our machines are expensive, one machine can save four or five female spinning workers than before. Su Song's labor is expensive, and prices are also high. Doesn't one worker spend nearly two taels of silver per month? At least a year. Fifteen to twenty taels.
Even if we earn them 80 taels for a machine, it is only more than a year's wages of the female workers they saved. And the machine will last for at least many years after it is sold. We also guarantee it, and only use what they saved in the previous year and a half. The tycoons can also understand the wages they receive as remuneration."
After hearing this, Chen Shuren couldn't help but his eyes lit up, and he took another high look at Dong Xiaowan's business skills.
Indeed, in an era without patent laws, this was the only way to best ensure monopoly interests.
Although the other party can imitate, as long as the Shen family discovers that they are imitating and more new looms appear in that house, the Shen family will be open to dumping new machines there.
At that time, the price of cotton yarn and reeling in that province will definitely drop by several percent, and the profit margins of the "exclusive dealers" who buy high-priced machines will also plummet. Therefore, it is better to maintain secrecy to the outside world and enjoy the monopoly for a few years. dividend.
In the final analysis, this operation only works well when there are very few customers. Because there are few people participating, it is easy to control. Each government only allows one of the most powerful monopoly capitalists to participate, which also avoids the "tragedy of the commons". ”.
Of course, this kind of control will not last long. After all, there are so many female spinning workers in every household who will use this new machine, and as long as there is profit margin, the female spinning workers will find a way to remember the structure of the machine, and then secretly Go back and copy.
Even if all the female spinning workers were replaced by female slaves born from the monopoly family's own family, there would still be no guarantee that there would be no runaway slaves.
Therefore, no matter how powerful the monopoly capitalist authorized by the Shen family was in the local area, no matter how slow the speed of information circulation in ancient times, it could not cover it for two or three years.
Everyone will only benefit from the information gap for a few years. After a few years, the technology will eventually spread. But this is enough. Let’s just give back to society.
When they joined forces with the Xu family to develop shuttle looms two years ago, the Shen family was not able to do this trick. That was because the Shen family and the Xu family did not have enough primitive accumulation at that time. One family could take over the market of each family alone.
, don’t have that much financial resources.
But the situation is different now. After the turmoil in the market, the allies who have strictly followed the Shen family in the past two years have also greatly increased their power, and each of them has accumulated at least hundreds of thousands of taels of cash.
So this time the Shen family asked them to spit out all the money they had earned in the previous two years at once and purchase new machines from the Shen family, so that they could make enough money.
To put it bluntly, to engage in industry is to reinvest a large amount of surplus value profits into expanding reproduction.
In the past two years, other families seemed to be making more money, but in fact they were still working for the Shen family.
Those who were disobedient in the past two years have been kicked out of the game by the Shen family and have no chance to participate this time.
In this way, as long as the Shen family maintains sufficient research and development capabilities, partners will believe that "the Shen family is extremely talented in strange skills and tricks, and they can always come up with some earth-shattering trick that makes a lot of money every two years."
Then when they face the immediate interests, they will think carefully and figure out the consequences of betraying the Shen family and eating alone. This will form a virtuous circle of not daring to go alone.
Of course, this virtuous cycle also relies to some extent on the power of the Shen family in the officialdom - especially in the second half of this year, Shen Tingyang has returned to Nanjing to become the Minister of Household Affairs in Nanjing, and the old Shangshu Qiu Weizhen is no longer in charge.
To put it bluntly, anyone who wants to do business in the territory of South Zhili is not afraid of trouble from the government, tax inspections, and anyone who dares to steal the business of the Minister of Household Affairs is seeking death under the nose of a tiger.
Chen Shuren made a final calculation and found that his family's net profit from the textile industry this year was more than one million taels, and the net profit from selling machines was about the same. Maritime trade, contracting water transportation for the imperial court, and collecting protection fees at sea totaled more than two million taels.
The current annual net profit of the Shen family has reached an astonishing four to five million taels! In the year before Shen Shuren traveled through time, this number was only around six or seven hundred thousand.
It took Shen Shuren less than three years to increase his family's earning power six to seven times!
It has risen from one-twentieth of the Zheng family to one-third of the Zheng family! It has firmly established itself as the second richest person in the world.
Such a large amount of financial resources naturally adds more guarantees and motivation to Shen Shuren's subsequent layout, allowing him to free up his hands and feet to attract more resources.
Even after reading the accounts, he discovered that the Shen family's new spinning machine business currently only expanded to the Suzhou Prefecture, plus Songjiang Prefecture and Huzhou Prefecture markets due to insufficient production capacity.
The Shen family of Suzhou Prefecture did it themselves, while Songjiang Prefecture and Huzhou Prefecture found reliable allies. According to Dong Xiaowan's original plan this year, the new machines produced in the first half of the year must first satisfy Changzhou Prefecture and Jiaxing Prefecture.
After the layout of these prefectures, basically all the neighbors around Suzhou Prefecture have been popularized by the new spinning machines. Only in the second half of the year will there be enough production capacity to continue to expand further away. For example, consider Hangzhou Prefecture.
Ningbo Prefecture.
Therefore, the "exclusive partner" of Changzhou Prefecture has not been decided yet. Originally, Dong Xiaowan asked the shopkeepers at home to choose another company with a longer cooperation period.
Now, Shen Shuren can consider cooperating with Zhou Yanru. After all, he is the first minister of the dynasty who is about to take office.
Thinking of this, Shen Shuren became even more grateful and doted on Dong Xiaowan. He not only stayed with her every day during the day, but also wrote some short essays himself in preparation for this grand event.
He turned back to his pen, Gu Yanwu, and asked him to polish it into gorgeous prose, praising Dong Xiaowan's invention of the "Xiaowan Spinning Machine".
In the future, they must be more famous than Zhang Dai's prose, or at least be included in Chinese textbooks.
…
Chen Shuren stayed at home for four days. During these four days, a lot of major events happened in the outside world. Important military news spread to Nanzhili and Nanjing one after another, which really made people's hearts fluctuate a few times.
In fact, it’s not that things that affect the overall military and political situation of the country all happen during the Chinese New Year. It’s that Southern Zhili is usually too idle, and everyone doesn’t pay much attention to the war situation in the north, so they are “selectively deaf” during the Chinese New Year. Already.
Now that the tenth day of the Lunar New Year has passed, the atmosphere of the New Year has faded away, and everyone has just begun to get down to business, and these news have gradually spread.
Over in Anqing, Fang Yizhi did not disappoint Chen Shuren. He finally completed the forced landing on Lin Chengcheng on the tenth day of the first lunar month.
He also sent the Pegasus Clipper to report the four hundred miles from Anqing to Nanjing in one day. At midnight on the eleventh day of the first lunar month, the news was delivered to Chen Shuren.
Chen Shuren was very satisfied with this and commended Fang Yizhi's messenger, saying that he should rest assured that Fang Yizhi and Shi Kefa would make good use of this contribution and benefit everyone.
Afterwards, Chen Shuren read the letter carefully and asked for some additional information. After learning that Fang Yizhi's process of persuading him to surrender was a near-miss, Fang Yizhi personally took dozens of horsemen and followers and went deep into the bandits' nest in the Dabie Mountains. , persuaded to surrender face to face,
Lin Chengcheng was also forced by the shortage of materials and the reinforcements were cut off. He finally agreed to accept the adaptation and immediately led his troops down the mountain to surrender to Zhang Huangyan's troops. Only a small number of troops who were trapped in the enclave and surrounded by Huang Degong from Anqing chose to surrender. Huang Degong surrendered on the spot.
This is partly because I heard that Shen Shuren treats his subordinates more favorably, and it is better to be treated as a mixed company with him. On the other hand, it is also because Huang Degong is more violent and kills people like crazy. After thinking about it, Lin Chengcheng thought that it would be better to surrender to a civilian official than to surrender to a general soldier. Can save life.
As for the more specific process of persuading surrender, Shen Shuren has not seen it personally, so he really can't figure it out in his head.
The only thing that can be confirmed is that Fang Yizhi is also very good at recording his own "heroic appearance". He personally took risks and went deep into the Dabie Mountains, and it was not for nothing.
Although there were no photos or oil painters to take selfies of him in this era, Fang Yizhi was considered one of the four great writers in Jiangzuo. Along the way, he wrote three poems praising the majestic and rugged scenery along the Dabie Mountains. He wrote a long preface to the poem, specifically explaining the causes and consequences of this trip.
Finally, he wrote an essay whose level was not inferior to that of Zhang Dai or Gu Yanwu, detailing his deeds of "sacrifice himself to go to the national disaster and regard death as a sudden return". Uninformed people thought he was Lu Zijing attending the meeting alone.
Of course, Fang Yizhi also copied a copy of these prose and landscape poems, and sent them to Chen Shuren along with the secret letter reporting victory.
Chen Shuren knows how to use these things, and this will be evidence when he bargains with Zhou Yanru for an official position.
In addition, in addition to Fang Yizhi's success in persuading Lin to surrender, there have been several important military developments in the north in the past few days.
First of all, after a winter of attrition, Li Zicheng finally gave up his first siege on Kaifeng City in the middle of the twelfth lunar month. The Kaifeng siege battle that lasted for more than three months officially ended with a great victory for the army.
It is said that the casualties suffered by Li Zicheng's direct troops were not too tragic, but Luo Rucai and Ma Shouying, the two bandit chiefs who had recently attached themselves to Li Zicheng in the second half of last year, suffered even worse losses, so much so that some cracks appeared within the bandits.
This incident actually happened a month ago, but the main officials in Henan's official circles were afraid that Li Zicheng was cheating and pretending to retreat before retaliate, so they did not dare to report it immediately.
It was not until New Year's Eve that the New Year was over and it was confirmed that the bandits had indeed escaped, and the Henan government happily reported the good news.
Because the emergency report was mainly sent to Beijing, and other directions could only wait for the news to spread naturally, so Nanjing did not receive the news nearly ten days after Henan reported it.
The other news was bad news, and it was also related to Li Zicheng's follow-up actions after his defeat in Kaifeng. After retreating from Kaifeng and returning to the Luoyang Basin in the middle of the twelfth lunar month, Li Zicheng only rested briefly, and unexpectedly took advantage of the cold winter lunar month to turn around and attack westward.
As a result, Fu Zonglong, the governor of Shaanxi Province who was newly appointed by the imperial court after the fall of Luoyang last year, was leaving Tongguan and Xiaohan Road from Shaanxi Province, heading towards Henan to intimidate Luoyang and try to regain the lost territory.
Fu Zonglong actually didn't have many troops, so this was very aggressive, because Shaanxi had been beaten for more than ten years and was the weakest province in the imperial court during the Chongzhen period. After Fu Zonglong took office, he couldn't recruit any direct troops.
He just felt that Li Zicheng had left Luoyang and was going to march eastward to Kaifeng, so he dared to raid Li Zicheng's rear.
Unexpectedly, Li Zicheng was defeated and turned around, and directly ran into Fu Zonglong's tribe outside the ancient Han Valley Pass. The two armies fought and directly surrounded Fu Zonglong. They fought bloody battles for more than ten days, and finally killed him among the rebels.
The Shaanxi Army of the Ming Dynasty, which had been assembled for half a year with great difficulty, was all given away again, and the rest surrendered to Li Zicheng.
Only one of them was led by Shaanxi veteran general He Renlong. He originally disapproved of Fu Zonglong's underestimation of the enemy and his rash advance into Henan. After Fu Zonglong was surrounded this time, he did not save his life and saved his own life.
The reason He Renlong announced for not rescuing him was, "Fu Zonglong was already surrounded by Li Zicheng at that time, and it was impossible for a letter of request for help to be sent to break out of the encirclement. Therefore, the letter of request for help must have been sent by a fake person from Li Zicheng, with the purpose of seizing me."
The troops also lured out the ancient Hangu Pass and annihilated them."
This reason sounds tenable for the time being, and the court can only accept it. It means that He Renlong has actually become a self-respecting warlord like Zuo Liangyu.
The governor of Shaanxi and Gansu died, and the imperial court had no choice but to let Wang Qionian, the governor of Shaanxi, temporarily take over the deceased's job, continue to control the He Renlong tribe, defend Shaanxi, and block Li Zicheng's way back to his hometown.
This series of bad news about military defeats occurred in the first ten days of the first month of the first month. However, because bad news often spreads faster, it was almost the same as the delayed victory news on the Henan battlefield.
Nanjing also learned the news on the twelfth day of the first lunar month, and people were panicked for a while.
Chen Shuren felt that the heat was almost there, so on the twelfth day of the first lunar month, he finally asked his father to serve Zhou Yanru with wine through Qiu Shangshu, and chat with Zhou Yanru about national affairs and his views on the northern battlefield, so as to make Fang Yizhi wise. Wait for others to take credit.
——
ps: The above is already 6,000 words long.
A few days ago, someone trolled me for spoilers, and I admitted it. However, I felt a little uncomfortable writing about the end of the Ming Dynasty, so I had to do this. Mainly because the atmosphere in the late Ming Dynasty often liked to troll and argue about who was the bad guy. Basically, in history, Donglin, The Eunuch Party, any faction in the late Ming Dynasty, has countless people calling them trash and traitors.
So much so that once the person who writes the book wants to criticize people of a certain faction and treat them as villains, he has to clarify: I am not saying that Ma Shiying is a bad person, which means that he is heinous, and it does not mean that his enemies are good people...
If these words are not clear enough, a bunch of people will immediately come out to cause trouble.
Of course, if it’s for traffic, it’s okay to stir up controversy appropriately, and it will also help the book get out of the circle. These days, if you want to be popular, you can’t be afraid of being scolded.
But I am a shameless person. Sometimes I would rather not be popular or get out of the circle than start a fight. Especially since this book has poor grades, I feel even more shameless.
I can only give a little spoiler before the villain appears - not even a spoiler. I just write about the bad things this person has done in history and take stock of them in advance. Then it is said that "the protagonist has to deal with him. Just because the protagonist and his political opponents are on the same side, it doesn’t mean that the protagonist thinks his political opponents are good people.”
You can think of whoever you want to be a bad person, and you can think of everyone as a bad person in the late Ming Dynasty.
This is the first time I have been exposed to the late Ming Dynasty, and this is also the first time I have deep feelings about this issue. In the late Ming Dynasty, almost every faction has been criticized, and no one is a good person in the eyes of most readers.