Great Tang Southern Emperor

The consortium controls the court, empties the emperor, and the throne is useless. The whole country eventually becomes an arena for capital wrestling. For their own benefit, they can sell everything in the country—just like those countries controlled by the consortium in later generations, the presidents are themselves. The elected ones are their spokespersons, and the entire country has been completely reduced to the playthings of the consortiums, without a trace of autonomy.

Compared with the aristocratic family, the consortium is even more terrifying, because everything in the consortium is based on profit, and their greed for profit is more naked, unlike the aristocratic family, at least they will put on a skin of benevolence and morality for themselves, but Consortiums are more demanding, and even for the sake of profit, it is not impossible to start a war (at least World War I and World War II, all because of the consortia behind those countries doing things).

But when Li Zhen shared her doubts with her confidants, what she got was their laughter.

"Sir, uncle, why are you laughing?"

"Hahaha..." Changsun Wuji smiled for a while, and said narrowly, "Your Highness, everyone knows that you have a long-term vision. Who would have thought that you would sometimes be confused."

"What do you mean by uncle?"

Seeing that Li Zhen really couldn't figure it out, Cen Wenwen smiled and said, "Your Highness, your problem may exist, but in fact there is no need to worry too much. It is human nature for people to pursue profit, so how can we stop it? But you I forgot one question, that is, if Datang really follows your plan, our imperial court itself will be the most powerful consortium in the world."

"Just like Your Highness, your chamber of commerce has almost monopolized Tang's weapon manufacturing, steel smelting, mineral mining, tea roasting, seafood processing, spice production, glass smelting... and other industries. The imperial court itself also has white paper production, books, etc. Monopoly in printing and many other industries.

Although there are other industries that are not monopolized, they are also involved in them—His Royal Highness, as long as these industries are always in our hands, we can control more than half of the world's economy. What do others take? Overtake us? "

"..." Li Zhen was thoughtful.

Chapter 669

Chapter 32 Answers

"Mr. Jingren (in the text of Cen Wen) said exactly what I wanted to say." Liu Rengui followed suit: "I won't say anything else, let's just talk about the sea. In the future, when the great voyage trade is really fully launched, Your Highness, relying on the foresight of the heavenly scriptures, we must eat the fattest meat, and the remaining bones will be eaten by those chambers of commerce. How can they be our opponents? If your highness is still worried, don’t worry. In the later voyages, we allocated a few private lands for the imperial court, as long as we have these lands, why should we worry about others surpassing us?"

"And don't forget, Your Highness." Changsun Wuji also said seriously: "In the end, the world still speaks according to the fist, and the truth is that the fist is big. As long as we can control the army of the whole country, no matter how much money others have, What's the use? Aren't we letting us be slaughtered?"

"That's right..." Changsun Wuji's words had completely opened Li Zhen's mind. Nothing happened yet, so what's the use of worrying about it now?

What's more, what Changsun Wuji said was right, as long as the military power is in hand and the independence of the military power is maintained, those so-called big consortiums are basically just cornrows in their hands, and they can eat whatever they want.

As for how to maintain the independence of military power, this is quite simple. Li Zhen has already had a preliminary idea. Military power itself has a certain degree of independence. The reason why the imperial court can control the army is not only the name of righteousness, but also money and food. Well, as long as the salary of the army is guaranteed to be paid directly by the royal family, no one else will be able to intervene anyway.

And don't forget, the current Datang is not a capitalist society, which pays attention to the so-called equality and freedom of human rights. Datang is a real feudal society, and the imperial power is supreme. Isn't it a simple matter to destroy several chambers of commerce?

The magistrate who ransacked the house, the county magistrate who killed the family, and some small officials can bring down a family. If the court takes action, wouldn't it be easy?

The establishment of some laws such as "Anti-Monopoly Law", "Patent Law" and "Intellectual Property Protection Law" is enough to limit the development potential of consortiums.Coupled with the property left by himself, even if Datang becomes a capitalist society in the future, it will be enough to ensure the smooth transition of power without too much chaos.

Besides, is it because you are worried about the development and growth of the consortium that you don't open the air route?Then what is the purpose of exploring the sea so hard?

Abandoning this plan just because of a little worry—isn't it too ridiculous to give up eating because of choking?

Therefore, the air route must still be open, but before opening the air route, Li Zhen felt that she had to do something - at least not to make those chambers of commerce feel that the money came too easily.

In this way, after another half a month, under Li Zhen's secret push, the matter of the new air route became more and more heated, and those chambers of commerce were even more impatient.

However, when they collected enough money to buy a boat, they were suddenly stunned, because they suddenly discovered that money is useless. No matter how rich you are, if you can't buy a boat, you can only stand on the shore and stare blankly.

Of course, it’s not that they don’t have a place to buy ships. Under Li Zhen’s secret layout, basically as long as there are ports of some size along the coast of the Tang Dynasty, there are shipyards. These shipyards are of different sizes. Large ones such as Yuechuan can manufacture warships alone Smaller ones, such as Hangzhou Shipyard, can only produce parts for large shipyards, but they have accumulated technology. As long as Li Zhen is willing, these shipyards can be upgraded to regular shipyards at any time.

However, regardless of the size of the shipyards, these shipyards have one thing in common—that is, they are all owned by Li Zhen.

It's not that all the ships of Datang are owned by Li Zhen, but Li Zhen's shipyard has already accounted for more than one percent of Datang's total ship production, and the remaining [-] percent are all small-scale ships. , and a shipyard that can only produce inland river ships, it is more appropriate to say that it is a shipyard, but a larger workshop.

Of course, both sea-going ships and river-going ships have one thing in common, that is, they are all made of wood. In theory, there is no difference in technology between the two, but how can things be so simple?

A shipyard specializing in the production of river boats will definitely not work without several years of testing if it wants to completely transform and manufacture a qualified seagoing ship.Moreover, the construction time of a ship is usually in units of months (the fastest one of the vertical and horizontal class merchant ships also took a little more than two months, and that is still when the technology is mature), and they want to form a fleet , It will take several years. With these few years of effort, I am afraid that all the soup in Luzon will be scoured by others.

So the current situation is that all the shipyards in Datang that can produce sea-going ships are in the hands of Li Zhen. If these chambers of commerce want to get ships, they must either start a new business and re-invest in a shipyard, but this will take a lot of time.

So in fact, they have only one choice, and that is to buy from Li Zhen.

Just wanting to buy from Li Zhen is not that simple. Not to mention whether they are willing to give money to competitors, but Li Zhen's own ships are not enough, and all the shipyards are already working in three shifts. The production is over, all the docks are already occupied by ships, and there are still a large number of orders waiting in line, where is there any spare time for the man-made ships?

If they place an order at this time and want to get the first ship, they have to wait until two years later, how can they afford it?

The only way is to buy at a high price, and the only one who has a large number of sea-going ships is Li Zhen...

But whether Li Zhen will sell it or not is another matter.

Li Zhen's ambition is not just a Luzon. In his plan, although Luzon is precious, the imperial court will also station troops there and place it under the administrative region, but Li Zhen's next actions will definitely not be based on leading. .

During Liu Rengui's trip to Luzon, he had initially obtained detailed information about Luzon, which was enough for the imperial court to initially control there, and the next step would be the overseas parts of Southeast Asia.

For example, the Malaysian region (Malaysia).

For example, the Indonesian region (Indonesia).

such as Malacca.

……

They are all places that Datang will search next.

Especially the first two are well-known island countries. Compared with Luzon, there are thousands of islands in these two countries, and the distribution is extremely wide. It is customary to label, but in fact, from the current point of view, the division is not scientific.If Datang wants to rule here in the future, it will definitely have to re-divide the area, so these two places need to focus on detection.

If you want to explore these two places in detail, you need a lot of ships. Li Zhen's own ships are not enough, so how can I distribute them to others?

unless……

The prices they give are exorbitant...

Chapter 670 Wu Fucheng

Chapter 33 Wu Fucheng

"Your Highness, Wu Fucheng, the president of the Datong Chamber of Commerce, seeks to see you." On this day, Li Zhen had just finished inspecting the construction of coastal houses, and before returning to the palace, Xiao Fuzi came to report with a greeting card.

It is now mid-May, when the storms are the most violent and frequent, especially the day before yesterday, when a typhoon landed directly from Yuezhou Port, hit Xiangjiang and Tai O, and passed through the Pearl River Estuary, heading straight towards Come with Yuezhou.Fortunately, although Yuezhou is located in Jiangkou, it is deep inland after all. Therefore, when the typhoon reached Yuezhou, it was already at the end of its strength, and it had turned into a normal ten-level squall. It did not bring too much damage to Yuezhou. It is also a blessing in misfortune.

However, the typhoon was in bad luck along the way, destroying everything encountered on the road, including the Yuezhou port, which was swept away by the typhoon. All the ships docked at the docks and had not had time to enter their berths, no matter big ships or The small boats were all swept away by the violent typhoon and completely became garbage on the river.

Even Panyu County along the way was affected, the city walls were overturned, and ninety percent of the houses in the city were damaged to varying degrees. Hundreds of people were killed or injured, and the property loss was initially estimated at about 20 yuan.

For this reason, Li Zhen was furious, severely punished the magistrate of Panyu County, and sentenced him to suspend his post and retain him. He was recorded as a major demerit once.

Yesterday he went to Panyu County for an inspection, and by the way stabilized the hearts of the people. He spent the night there, and today he bid farewell to his elders in Panyu, and rushed back to Yuezhou City in the rain.

Just returned to the palace, didn't even have a mouthful of ginger soup, and heard Xiao Fuzi's report, Li Zhen's evil fire surged up from the bottom of her heart, and she said angrily: "You bastard, you got into Qian's eyes Is it? I don’t even look at what time it is now, why is this king in the mood to see him? Tell him to get out of here.”

"Your Highness, I'm here to give gifts. There are dozens of carts of food and tents." Little Fuzi was taken aback by Li Zhen, but thinking of what Wu Fucheng brought, he felt the need to remind Li Zhen.

"Something?" Li Zhen was stunned, then smiled: "It really is a good plan, you can let him in."

"Yes."

"Grassman Wu Fucheng, I have met His Royal Highness the King of Yue." Wu Fucheng is an old man who looks very old, with gray beard and hair, and age spots all over his face. look like?