Volume 1: Birth! Seven time travelers Chapter 120: Helping You Get on the Horse and Sending You on Your Way (Part 2)
"Sitting alone in the pond like a crouching tiger, resting under the green shade of the tree. In spring, if I don't speak first, which insect dares to speak... How domineering! Your Highness is less than eight years old, right? You can write such a poem. This is the style of a king !"
"Hahaha~~ Who doesn't know that Donglin held this essay contest to challenge Jinling Daily? But what was the result? Two full pages, dozens of poems, all pale in comparison to your highness's seven-character quatrain."
"My dear brother, your choice of words is inappropriate. This is not called eclipsed, but total submission."
"Hmm? That makes sense. Aren't the other poems on these two pages all trembling in front of your seven-character quatrain, like ministers trembling in fear after seeing a great ruler? Hahaha, my Ming Dynasty is truly blessed by heaven!"
By March 15th, Donglin Daily had appeared in more than 80% of the counties and cities in the four provinces of Nanzhili, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and Huguang in the Ming Dynasty.
This is of course the credit of all the branches of Fangshan Grocery Store.
Mirrors, glass, glasses, clocks, various fireworks, soaps, candles, fruit wine and other commodities all have extremely high or relatively high profits. And because of the strong support and protection of Jinyiwei in various places, the biggest cost of doing business in the Ming Dynasty: managing various heroes and officials, does not exist for Fangshan Grocery Store in various counties. So, on the one hand, the profit is high, and on the other hand, the expenditure is reduced. Therefore, Fangshan Industrial Park can afford the cost of opening branches in various counties.
In fact, the Fangshan grocery stores in various counties now not only sell things to make profits, but also have the largest, fastest and even safest logistics and communication channels in the four provinces of Jiangnan - the Jinyiwei news channel, which is much more reliable than ordinary post stations, right?
This is also the reason why Donglin Academy had to hold its nose and cooperate with His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.
Literati love fame, which is a common problem among quite a few literati in ancient and modern times, both in China and abroad. The literati in Donglin Academy are all like this, without exception.
In this era, publishing a newspaper is the fastest way to see results. But after publishing a newspaper, if you want to sell it widely and let more people see it, leaving aside the quality and price of the newspaper, the logistics channel is the most fundamental thing. For example, the front pages of the two newspapers in Daming are now publishing national affairs. Donglin lacks information channels in this regard compared to the Crown Prince . If the logistics can't keep up, what you report is what others published half a month ago. Who will care about you?
Therefore, although they knew that relying entirely on competitors' logistics channels was a huge hidden danger, Gu Xiancheng, Gao Panlong and others still accepted it. Not only that, they also had to respectfully place the seven-character quatrain copied by Zhu Youdong in the middle of the seventh edition. The editor of this edition, Xue Fujiao, even made a comment with a licking face and praised it with a lemony flavor.
Zhu Youdong was also a little surprised when he saw all this: Who said that the Donglin Party members are all stubborn? When it comes to their own interests, they are also very flexible. Who said that the Donglin Party members are all morally clean? They can also cooperate with a big devil like me.
In this way, the two sides shared the distribution channels, and the peace lasted until June of that year.
Donglin Academy.
"Cunzhi (Gao Panlong), this can't be true, right?"
"Ah, although I don't want to admit it, this is true."
"How is this possible? In March, the newspaper's sales were 13,000 copies, but how come in May, the sales were only 5,800 copies?"
"Shushi (Gu Xiancheng), in short, it's all my fault as the editor-in-chief. I am willing to resign from this position and take up the responsibility."
"Just be patient. We have all seen how hard you have worked over the past few months. Something must have gone wrong. Could it be that Fangshan Grocery Store treated the sales of the two newspapers differently?"
After saying this, Gu Xiancheng's old face couldn't help but blush: It's hard to say about other counties and cities, but at least in Wuxi, Fangshan Grocery Store sells both types of newspapers in the same place - without any misleading recommendations, you can choose for yourself.
As for other prefectures and counties. Haha, Donglin Daily is an important battlefield for the Jiangnan gentry and His Royal Highness to compete for public opinion. Although the gentry from all over the country do not say it, they are actually paying close attention. If Fangshan Grocery Store really treats the two newspapers differently, then these local tyrants from all over the country will not immediately seize this point to attack Jinling Daily?
But in the past few months, even the most picky gentry could not find any fault with the fairness of Fangshan.
Donglin Daily has gradually lost out in the competition over the past few months, and the most fundamental reason is one: its content is not down-to-earth.
It should be said that these gentlemen of Donglin Academy were not stupid, and they all saw a lot from Jinling Daily. In order to compete with Jinling Daily for sales, they frowned and wrote novels of strange stories, and gritted their teeth to learn to publish current affairs reviews and essays in vernacular Chinese. It can be said that in order to make more people accept their views, they really did a lot of things that they themselves thought were insulting in the past.
However, it was a combination of officials, gentry, and a group of proud and arrogant people. No matter how hard this group tried, they were definitely not as down-to-earth as Zhu Youdong and his failed scholars, old students, and sons of clerks who had worked among the people for many years.
The biggest advantage of Jinling Daily is of course the time traveler Zhu Youdong. His modern and mature marketing and management methods have made it possible for Jinling Daily to have no adaptation period during its growth process, and it has directly acquired mature newspaper publishing concepts and sales methods.
Moreover, Zhu Youdong was not as coy as those gentlemen in Donglin. They had already published a newspaper, but they were not allowed to place advertisements? Moreover, this was the Ming Dynasty. The brothels were legal and open to the public. Why couldn't they also place advertisements? Advertisements were the main source of funds for the survival of newspapers. Moreover, ordinary people did have the need to see advertisements.
As for The Legend of the Condor Heroes or The Return of the Condor Heroes, they are accelerators for rapidly accumulating popularity. If they are, the development speed of Jinling Daily will be accelerated. If they are not, in the Ming Dynasty, when the current entertainment methods are extremely backward, Jinling Daily will also slowly reach a high level.
In short, in this newspaper competition, if it comes to sales volume, Donglin has no chance of winning.
In March of this year, many restaurants and pubs with local gentry behind them organized the storytellers supported by the restaurants to read Donglin Daily first and then Jinling Daily. Many local officials in prefectures and counties, in addition to posting Jinling Daily on the newspaper columns outside their government offices in accordance with the instructions of the Crown Prince, took the initiative to post Donglin Daily. However, after more than three months, there are not many restaurants that still insist on reading Donglin Daily every day : the popularity has collapsed. In the end, it is necessary to maintain friendship with retired officials like Gu Xiancheng, fight for the right to public opinion for their group, and make money for their own industries. The vast majority of gentry honestly chose the latter.
The newspaper columns in various prefectures and counties gradually took down the Donglin Daily: it was fine that the common people in the restaurant did not like to listen to the Donglin Daily. Even the scholars who could read independently did not like to read it! They made it very clear in their opinions to the local chief officials: My Lord, instead of posting the Donglin Daily, it is better to post an additional copy of the Jinling Daily for more people to read!
This predicament made the gentry from all over the country feel that the Donglin Academy was not worthy of its reputation. Gradually, the monthly funding from the gentry from all over the country also decreased significantly. Many gentry simply said that their families were poor and that the previous sponsorship had already exhausted everything they had...
In short, the outcome of this newspaper competition will be decided in less than four months.
This made the Donglin gentlemen shudder!
