After Zhu Yuanzhang expelled the Tartars and established his rule in the Central Plains, he was actually not well received by scholars.
Some people were blindly loyal to the Yuan Dynasty, holding the Shouyang Mountain mentality of not eating Ming grain. Others simply looked down on him, thinking that he was of a humble origin and treated literati like enslaved 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 the Great Edict, in which the government recommended Yao Shurun ​​and Wang Xie to be officials. However, the two were unwilling to go to Beijing to be officials, so they resorted to some tricks in private. When Zhu Yuanzhang found out about it, he immediately beheaded them.
In addition to the three major cases during the Hongwu period, no matter who was involved, Zhu Yuanzhang never showed mercy and killed people in such a way that rivers of blood flowed and heads rolled down.
Therefore, being an official was once considered a high-risk profession, causing many Jiangnan literati to avoid it as much as possible.
However, Lao Zhu is a strange person. The more you don't come, the more he wants to recruit you. If it doesn't work once, he will try twice. If it doesn't work twice, he will try more. If you don't come many times, it means you look down on Lao Zhu, so you must be killed!
"Princess, the person I recommend is Yang Xinlu, the son of Yang Weizhen from Fengqiao, Shaoxing. This person has relied on his father's reputation of refusing to serve in the court despite being summoned several times. Although he is not well-known in the court, he has a very high reputation among the people. The literati in Jiangnan even regard him as a leader in the literary world!"
"The other person is Gao Ming, the younger brother of the famous Suzhou scholar Gao Qi. Your Majesty killed Gao Qi because of a poem, which caused great dissatisfaction among the literati in Jiangnan. Many people in the world regret it."
"If the Crown Princess can recruit Gao Ming to serve His Highness Yun Wen, all the literati in Jiangnan will be convinced!"
"Besides the two of them, there is another person, Qin Yubo's younger brother Qin Hengbo. However, this person likes to practice Taoism 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 will be able to provide a lot of help to His Highness Yunwen!"
Lu secretly wrote down the names of several people, then thanked Huang Zicheng for his advice , led everyone to linger for a while, and then returned to the Prince's Mansion, staring at the beams in the hall in a daze.
Although Huang Zicheng did not say it explicitly, with Lu's intelligence, how could he not hear the implied meaning.
The so-called risk of death in order to survive, translated into plain language, is just the three tricks of a shrew who starts with crying, then makes a fuss and then threatens to hang herself.
Since she had already said these words in front of the Dragon-Severing Stone, if she did not express her opinion, she would definitely be laughed at by the world, and even the old man would feel disgusted with her.
But hanging yourself is a technical job, and if you’re not careful, you might lose your life.
Lu walked around the place where Zhu Biao's coffin was once placed for half an hour before he made up his mind to hang himself in front of the old man and the world!
But to be on the safe side, she decided to let others try it first to see what the chances of success were!
"Dongmei, how have I treated you over the years?"
When Dongmei heard this, she knew that there was an important matter for her to do, and she immediately expressed her loyalty to Lu.
"Your Majesty has been so kind to me that I cannot repay you even if I have to climb mountains of swords or plunge into boiling water!"
"Since you said so, I will give you an important task. Hang yourself for me to see!"
"ah?"
Dongmei was so frightened that she immediately knelt down and begged for mercy.
"Please spare me, Madam. Dongmei has always been loyal to you and has never..."
Mrs. Lu interrupted Dongmei's crying.
"I just told you to hang yourself for a while and I'll order someone to rescue you right away. I didn't mean to let you really hang yourself to death!"
Dongmei felt better after hearing this.
While Lu and the palace maids were hiding in the Prince's Mansion practicing the stunt of hanging, Zhu Yunhuan was in the main hall talking to his beloved Thirteenth Uncle about how to make money.
"Uncle Thirteen, do you remember the last time we talked about opening a bookstore?"
"What's the matter? Have you written a new story?"
"Yes!"
When Zhu Gui heard this, he felt a little excited.
"Where is it? Bring it here so I can appreciate it!"
"Uncle Thirteen, I hid the draft at home. I'll take you back to get it during lunch break."
"What I am discussing with you now is how to open a bookstore!"
Zhu Gui is a person who is most afraid of trouble. He frowned when he heard this.
"Last time at the bookstore, didn't the owner tell me that you can just give the books to them to sell on your behalf? There's no need to go through the trouble of opening a bookstore."
Zhu Yunhuan continued to deceive.
"Uncle Thirteen, if we let them sell the books on our behalf, how much less money will we earn?"
"If we open our own bookstore, find someone to print the books and sell them ourselves, wouldn't that mean we can take advantage of the whole upstream and downstream and make all the money ourselves?"
Zhu Gui immediately became interested when it came to making money. He was so short of money that his eyes turned red.
Last time when he sent something to Zhu Yunhuan on behalf of his mother, he secretly found three thousand taels of silver. If it weren't for the fact that the jade cabbage was too eye-catching to sell, he would have even wanted to swap that thing.
"Yes!"
"Then tell me, what should we do now!"
"Uncle Thirteen, this is what I think. If we want to do it, we should do it on a large scale. First, we should 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. Once we become famous, we can make money by selling other people's books!"
The more Zhu Gui listened, the more excited he became, and he was eager to try it out.
"The shop is not worth much, and the rent for it is only a few hundred taels a year."
"Printing books isn't difficult. I'm familiar with Ambassador Zheng from the Silver Bureau. Just give them some silver and they'll help us print them!"
When Zhu Yunhuan heard this, his eyes lit up. He didn't expect that there was a place to print books in the palace. This way he could save a lot of money.
"How about we ask for leave from our master and go to the Silver Bureau first?"
"OK!"
The two men made their plan, and then one of them ran away to urinate, and the other ran away to defecate, and disappeared in the main hall.
Qi Tai pretended not to have seen through the two men's tricks and continued reading.
He has always been lenient towards students and never demands any disciplinary issues as long as they can complete their homework.
The so-called Silver Manufacturing Bureau was not located in the palace, but next to the Five Military Commanderies Office. It was a branch separated from the original weapons manufacturing bureau.
After all, this thing is smoky and can easily cause a fire. How could Zhu Yuanzhang build it in the palace?
When the two men arrived, the Silver Bureau had just received a large order, and everyone was busy with engraving and proofreading. Only Ambassador Zheng Yuanchang was idle and came over happily.
"Your Highness Prince Yu, what good thing 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 found last time was sent here to be cast into silver leaves of one cent each so that he could spend them more conveniently.
Now that the victim was standing next to him, he felt a little embarrassed.
" Ahem ... We want to print some books this time. I wonder if Ambassador Zheng is free?"
"Printing books..."
When Zheng Yuanchang heard about printing books, he lost interest.
The main thing is that this thing is not only time-consuming and laborious, but also leaves little money.
Relatively speaking, making gold and silver utensils and jewelry is much better. Last time, he made 1,500 taels of silver leaves for Prince Yu, and he earned 300 taels from this item alone!
"Your Highness Prince Yu, I am not trying to shirk my responsibility. It is because His Majesty asked us to print 10,000 sets of the Diamond Sutra in order to pray for the well-being of Crown Prince Yiwen."
"As you saw when you came in just now, the Bank is so busy that we really can't spare any manpower to help you print the book!"
When Zhu Gui heard that the purpose was to print scriptures to pray for the Crown Prince , he immediately shut up and planned to go outside the palace and spend a lot of money to find a printing house.
However, before he could open his mouth, he heard Zhu Yunhuan say something.
“We don’t print for nothing, we spend money!”
When Zheng Yuanchang heard the other party say that he was willing to spend money, he was no longer so resistant.
"I wonder how many sets Your Highness wants to print, and how much each set is estimated to cost?"
"We will print 10,000 sets for now, and we may increase the number later!"
"As for the cost..."
"Just give us 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 the Third Royal Highness become so shrewd that he even knows how to bargain?
You have to know that the nobles in the palace are the easiest to deceive, and they basically believe whatever they say.
"Your Highness, how about I give it to you at 80% off the market price?"
Zhu Yunhuan shook his head to express his displeasure, and Zheng Yuanchang continued to lower the price.
"Then 30% off is fine. You have to let us earn enough money to make a living. If it's too little, I won't be able to explain to my craftsmen!"
"Then I'll give you a 30% discount. Don't try to fool me. I'll send someone to inquire outside the palace. If someone offers a lower price than you, I won't let you do this job!"
"Please rest assured, Your Highness. Our silver bureau is definitely the cheapest in the entire capital. We dare not charge you a penny more!"
Although Zheng Yuanchang said this, he was actually thinking proudly in his heart how to report more losses to his superiors and save money on paper and ink.
These two items are the biggest costs for printing a book, and labor is relatively secondary.
The reason why he dared to quote such a low price was because he believed that the wool comes from the pig. He had no intention of spending money on purchasing materials at all, but planned to save it from Lao Zhu's project and then sell it to Xiao Xiao Zhu.
"Your Highness, how many words are there in your book?"
"The price of each copy varies depending on the number of words."
"Let's print 30,000 words for the first edition."
"How many?"
"Thirty thousand words! This is just the beginning. There are nearly five million words to come!"
Zheng Yuanchang was stunned by the number of words. He thought Zhu Yunhuan was just printing a poem or something, with two or three thousand words at most. He never expected it to be such a magnum opus.
In this case, I'm afraid we won't be able to cope with the situation simply by withholding your Majesty's paper and ink.
"No, you printed too many words, you have to pay more..."
After half an hour of bargaining, the two finally reached a deal at a price of one hundred coins per copy.
However, as Party A, Zhu Yunhuan had to pay the full amount of printing first before Party B expressed willingness to do the work.
Zhu Yunhuan didn't want to pay this money. First, he didn't have much money. Most of the gifts he received last time were jewelry and ornaments, which couldn't be used directly as money. Second, he was not sure that the people of the Ming Dynasty would like "Fights Break Sphere", a novel that was hundreds of years ahead of its time. What if he accidentally lost money?
"Uncle Thirteen, since we are doing business together, please take a look at this amount of money..."
"I paid for the 1,000 taels, but if you make money in the future, you have to give me half of it!"
"no problem!"
Now that the price had been agreed upon, the next step was to print it. The two immediately rushed back to the Prince's Mansion to get the draft, but when they passed by the main hall, Zhu Yunhuan suddenly stopped.
"Isn't that the Crown Princess's personal maid? Why is she standing guard at the front hall door so stealthily?"