Chapter 167 Chongzhen's Concerns

However, when Chongzhen saw that Man Gui requested to purchase rice, beans, salt and iron directly from Datong and transport them to Guihua City to complete the transaction with Ligdan Khan, he was in a dilemma.

Not to mention that he had just issued the imperial edict to "abolish all rewards" and had already traded with Dorothea. If he were to make an exception for trade again, it would inevitably leave the impression in the minds of his subjects that he was untrustworthy and changed his orders every day.

It's not entirely out of consideration of face, but if Man Gui is approved again this time, what if the generals of the other nine important towns adjacent to Mongolia also make the same request?
Is it accurate or not?

If all of them were approved, wouldn't my "abolishing all rewards" be in name only and become a complete joke?
Moreover, Chongzhen was also very worried. If that happened, the eight Shanxi merchants who had just been eliminated for collaborating with the enemy would show up with nine military merchants, and it would not be easy to eliminate them.

After all, Mao Wenlong could smuggle in Liaodong, and Yuan Chonghuan also sold grain privately to Kharchin. However, Chongzhen could understand that Yuan Chonghuan did so in order to win over Kharchin, so he pretended not to know.

Since Mao Wenlong and Yuan Chonghuan are both capable, then why can't other military commanders do the same?

However, Chongzhen had already learned from Wang An about Man Gui's character and his original fate, so he couldn't help but have a certain degree of trust in the loyal minister who died fighting for the country.

Therefore, he believed that Man Gui's request for a special exception must be really for the purpose of purchasing war horses and strengthening Datong's armaments.

I can't bear to reject it, nor do I want to reject it.

Suddenly, Chongzhen remembered something for some reason. When Wang An talked to him about the Eight Shanxi Merchants, he said that after the Qing Dynasty entered the Pass, they summoned people to the Forbidden City and canonized the Eight Shanxi Merchants as imperial merchants, and put them under the management of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Although the Ming Dynasty court did not have the Imperial Household Department, it had twenty-four government offices and the Honglu Temple, which was specifically responsible for purchasing and supplying materials for the court.

Why don't I also appoint an imperial merchant and issue him a "Chafa" token to purchase the supplies Man Gui needs in the name of the court?
On the surface, this can be seen as Chongzhen's reward to Ligdan Khan rather than a trade.

Of course, Chongzhen also considered trading directly with Ligdan Khan in the form of tribute (trade), but tribute trade is also a kind of mutual trade, which is still a slap in the face. The other nine important towns can also ask the corresponding Mongolian tribes to pay tribute.

But since Chongzhen himself gave the "reward" to Ligdan Khan, no one would have anything to say!

Of course, Chongzhen could have let Man Gui purchase supplies locally as a "reward" to Ligdan Khan, but Chongzhen was a slightly "cautious" person. Even though he had 70% trust in Man Gui in his heart, he was still worried that Man Gui would smuggle contraband to Ligdan Khan.

But if there is a trustworthy "imperial merchant" who is directly under the Honglu Temple, then it would be different.

The payment for the goods was directly paid to the Honglu Temple, and the merchant was paid silver according to the goods he transported to Datong.

Even if Man Gui paid the money privately and entrusted the purchase of contraband, it would be fine as long as he found a trustworthy imperial merchant.

If Mangui does anything dishonest, people will tell him directly.

So where can we find this reliable person?

Chongzhen touched his chin and smiled. His brother kept asking him to invest in business. He must be very interested in border trade, right?

…………

After Chongzhen left that day, Wang An thought that summer was coming. Although the coal warehouse business had purchases from the catering industry, it was ultimately the off-season.

So they planned to find another place to open a factory to mass-produce soap and glycerin, a by-product in the soap saponification process.

In fact, Wang An has been producing glycerin and selling it as a moisturizing skin care essence oil.

Both the reputation and the effect have been well received by the Qianjin lady and the kiln sister, but due to the limited production capacity, it has never been able to be mass-produced. After all, this thing is just a derivative of soap. If you want to increase the output, you have to increase the output of soap.

But with just a few laundry women in his shop, it was impossible to consume large amounts of soap.

If a large amount of soap is produced and cannot be used up, it will not only cause inventory backlog but also be a huge waste of funds.

Even though soap was worthless in later generations and was even on the verge of being eliminated, that was in later generations when productivity greatly increased.

To put it bluntly, in an age when even black Africans can eat fried chicken and watermelon, what is soap?
But in the Ming Dynasty, producing soap meant a lot of cost.

First of all, the main raw materials of soap are animal and plant oils.

Not to mention animal fats and oils, no matter what kind of animal it is, it’s meat, and as long as it’s meat, it’s not cheap.

Of course, if someone suggests that in a dozen years, there will be starving people everywhere and meat will be sold for free, which is a hellish joke, just pretend that Wang An didn't say anything.

In the Ming Dynasty, the lower-class people could only eat meat a few times a year.

The fat meat that was despised by later generations has become a treasure that everyone loves, while lean meat is what no one wants.

Not to mention vegetable oils and fats. The Ming Dynasty had not yet introduced palm oil, so vegetable oils and fats were even more expensive.

Fortunately, the cost of soap is not cheap, but the selling price of soap itself and its accessory glycerin is not low either, so the profit can be considerable.

So Wang An decided to find a place specifically for producing soap and glycerin, just like opening a coal warehouse.

Wang An immediately started looking for a venue.

Because the company not only produces soap, but also needs to carry out simple processing and packaging of the glycerin produced by the chemical reaction, Wang An gave the new factory a very nice name this time - Wangji Chemical!
At this point, starting with Wangji Herbal Medicine Shop, Wangji Mining (Xishan Coal Mine), Wangji Coal Warehouse, Wangji Chemical Industry, etc. were gradually established, forming a series of business empires.

Under Wang An's mobilization, almost all the people in Doujiafang came out to help Wang An find a suitable site. In the end, it was Ergou who was very helpful and found a cargo yard of similar size to the coal warehouse, which was about ten acres in size, not far from the coal warehouse.

Originally, there was coal stored there, but the owner wanted to sell it for unknown reasons.

Of course, this has nothing to do with Wang An. The only trouble is that the other party does not rent it out, but only sells it.

At that time, an acre of good farmland in the Jiangnan region could be sold for around twelve taels of silver. Although it was cheaper in the north, it still cost around seven or eight taels of silver.

What's more, since it is near the capital, the other party would not sell it for less than ten taels of silver per acre, which means that the entire cargo yard would cost one hundred and ten taels of silver.

Although for ordinary people this may be a sum that they cannot earn in their entire lifetime, for Wang An, it is just a drizzle.

Not to mention the treasures Wei Zhongxian gave him, the earnings from the coal warehouse alone amounted to several thousand taels of silver in savings.

Of course, this is before Chongzhen has received any dividends.

(End of this chapter)