Chapter 110: The Great Ming Palace Is Prone to Fire, and the Emperor Is Prone to Dissolving in Water!

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“So you spent all three days and three nights here?”

The emperors and crown princes wore strange expressions.

“Mhm, mhm, mhm!”

The Tianshun Fortress Ancestor was crying so hard he could barely breathe. Squatting atop the table, he wolfed down food by himself, leaving crumbs smeared all over his face and clothes.

“Slow down,” Zhu Youjian said considerately. “There’s no rush. I’ll get you more after you finish.”

“Waaah…”

Tears filled the Fortress Ancestor’s eyes. With his mouth stuffed full, he sprayed food everywhere and could barely form a word.

Judging by his expression, however, he was probably cursing quite viciously.

Gulp!

He finally forced the mouthful down.

Zhu Qizhen clutched his distended belly and wailed in protest. “Is anyone going to do something about this? Father, Ancestors, can’t you stand up for me?”

His words were unintelligible, and tears had soaked his robes. He looked so pitiful that anyone might have felt sorry for him.

After all, nearly starving an ancestor to death was surely at least a little treasonous. No matter where you went, there was no justice in that.

“Grandson, what happened? Just look at how starved this child is. Tsk, he barely looks human anymore!”

Zhu Yuanzhang did not particularly like this pig-headed Fortress Ancestor, but no matter how distasteful he found him, the man was still a member of the Zhu clan. Seeing the child reduced to a prehistoric state by hunger naturally stirred a trace of sympathy in the old ancestor.

When the founding ancestors all turned toward him with questioning looks, Zhu Youjian explained through clenched teeth, “It was an accident. Truly, just an accident!”

“The rear palace of the Chongzhen court caught fire that day. You know how the Great Ming imperial palace is forever catching fire, Ancestor, so I went to sleep for one night in the Southern Palace during the Jingtai era…”

“After that, I can’t really remember what happened. Perhaps… perhaps I have a habit of killing people in my dreams?”

The Great Ming imperial palace was prone to catching fire, and emperors were prone to dissolving in water.

Old Zhu Di’s gaze instantly darkened.

The capital at Beijing was completed in the nineteenth year of Yongle. Zhu Di held a ceremony in the first month to celebrate the completion of the imperial palace, and by the fourth month the furious grand secretaries had set it ablaze!

The grand secretariat elders Yang Shiqi and Jin Youzi were from Jiangxi. Huang Huai and Yang Rong came from Fujian and Zhejiang respectively. Their ancestral homes all lay south of the Yangtze.

Ming officials were both landlords and capitalists. Their land and businesses were all in the south.

Why should they follow you to Beijing?

There was not even any heating…

When the three great halls of Yongle burned down, the civil officials began cursing the very next day when they went to court. One of them, Xiao Yi, cursed the most fiercely:

“Zhu Di, you brat, your conduct is lacking in every one of the five elements! Heaven is punishing you! Hurry up and move the capital back to Nanjing, then kneel before your father’s spirit tablet and apologize!”

Zhu Di had never been one to indulge such behavior. He had the bastard subjected to death by a thousand cuts—two thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven of them.

And now the imperial palace of the Chongzhen court had burned again!

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“Damn it! Have they got it in for the Zhu clan or something?”

Zhu Yuanzhang pondered for a moment. “For my sake, let this matter go.”

He had even started killing people in his dreams now? Those were my words!

Covering his face, Zhu Qizhen sobbed so bitterly that he could barely breathe.

“What? You object?” Emperor Xuande, Zhu Zhanji, glared at him.

“Object? I… how could I possibly object?” Zhu Qizhen’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets, while drool streamed onto the floor.

A rich medicinal fragrance filled the air, making everyone’s mouth water.

“These are one hundred pills for nourishing the body and strengthening the constitution. They’re for you,” Zhu Youjian said, scratching his head. He looked as though he was one sentence away from boasting about his considerable family fortune.

“Ahem!”

“You’re still a child. You might spend them recklessly, so Father will keep them for you!” Emperor Xuande, Zhu Zhanji, snatched away more than ninety of the pills, leaving only four or five in the Fortress Ancestor’s hands.

Crack!

I’m damn well thirty years old!

Zhu Qizhen’s lips trembled with fury. His heart shattered into several pieces. The indulgent father who had doted on him throughout his childhood was gone forever!

“Do you object?” Emperor Xuande raised an eyebrow.

“I… suppose I don’t.”

Zhu Qizhen muttered a few words. Under the crushing pressure of his father’s bloodline, that little spark of anger and resentment was forcibly extinguished. He sat down in the Zhengtong throne by himself and sulked in silence.

Zhu Yuanzhang, Old Zhu Di, and Zhu the Fourth all remained perfectly composed. They did not consider these trifling rewards worth a second glance.

In the Jingtai timeline, three Zhu Dis had devised all manner of pretexts to extort tens of thousands of medicinal pills from Zhu Youjian. These days, they woke every morning, took in the medicinal fragrance to clear their heads, and then went to court to get to work.

What?

You say it was the young Zhu Di who extorted those pills?

What a joke. The young Zhu Di himself was Zhu Yuanzhang’s private property. As for wanting medicinal pills, he could keep dreaming.

Before long, the exchange session began.

Zhu Yuanzhang cheerfully opened with, “Over in the Hongwu court, we’ve only just mentioned the policy of issuing a new currency, and those gentry and civil officials have already started making trouble, just as expected! This time, we managed not to kill anyone.”

“We released a batch of Great Ming coins and auctioned them using Grandson’s method. Then we found a few shills and managed to push the price of a single Great Ming coin all the way up to two hundred taels! Afterward, the price stabilized at one hundred taels each. Even so, those worthless bastards fought one another half to death to get their hands on them!”

“It’s only been three days, and the price of Great Ming coins traded privately has already risen to two hundred and forty taels apiece. Grandson, why don’t we simply forget about issuing a new currency? We can sell these things as rare treasures instead. We’re bound to make a fortune!”

A Great Ming coin cost only one mace of silver to produce, yet it could be hyped up to two hundred taels apiece—a solid two-thousandfold profit. Old Zhu was still hungry for more.

Of one hundred thousand Great Ming coins, he had sold only two or three hundred and had already earned forty or fifty thousand taels of silver. Once they were all sold, wouldn’t he make ten million taels?

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Old Zhu Di looked at his father, who was practically sinking into a pile of money, and offered a reminder:

“Father, rarity creates value. Once too many enter circulation, Great Ming silver coins will no longer be worth anything.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?”

Zhu Yuanzhang glared at him.

The Great Ming Paper Currency had already collapsed after you used it to fleece everyone without putting up a single copper. How could it withstand this sort of treatment?

Handled this way, wouldn’t we be turning the dynasty into a one-man shop selling works of art?

Zhu Youjian shook his head. “Great Ancestor, this currency will depreciate. And when it comes to making money, we certainly aren’t talking about these few crumbs. We’re laying the groundwork centuries in advance. In the future, Great Ming silver coins will dominate the world and become hard currency tied to gold.”

“Grandson is right.”

Zhu Yuanzhang nodded cheerfully. The old man understood everything. He simply wanted to support his grandson with a word of praise.

Sometimes, one truly felt helpless.

Old Zhu Di sighed faintly.

“Grandson, this time the three courts are each gathering two million taels of silver. That will produce eighteen million silver coins. Once they enter circulation, they’ll surely cause the existing Great Ming silver coins to depreciate rapidly. And with the issuance of Great Ming Moon Coins, exchanged one-for-one against copper cash, the new currency will quickly displace copper cash altogether.”

“What I mean is this: before each court begins issuing them, hold auctions for selected groups. Offer private purchases, impose limited quantities, and let them bleed themselves dry. Once they’ve suffered enough, we can release them in bulk and fleece those fat landlords and wealthy merchants for all they’re worth.”

Zhu Yuanzhang wore an exceedingly sinister smile.

All his life, Old Zhu had devoted himself to making the rich poor and the poor rich. A scheme this ruthless and calculating was perfectly in keeping with his temperament.

Of course, Old Zhu had always believed that he himself was the poorest of all the poor.

Zhu Youjian was speechless. He had never expected the Great Ancestor to know how to harvest leeks and set up a pig-butchering scheme.

“Great Ancestor is truly wise!”

Still, he nodded. It was harmless enough, after all.

Taking a little money from wealthy merchants and landlords was hardly excessive. With this crowd, you could fleece them to death and still not wrong a single one.

Bring down one of them, and your hidden virtue and merit would soar.

Old Zhu Di nodded and immediately chimed in. “We’ll do as Father says.”

“Same here!”

Zhu the Fourth followed close behind.

…