Late Ming Dynasty: Oops, I am surrounded by the Donglin Party

Given his status as Duke of Qian, naturally no one would object.

But Mu Tianbo seemed a little embarrassed.

"Brother, I still have to go back to Yunnan and may not be able to take care of the Chamber of Commerce's affairs.

Why not let Tianze take over temporarily? He has been managing the family business."

Mu Tianbo is twenty-three years old this year, and his younger brother Mu Tianze is the same age as Zhang Shikang.

Everyone unanimously agreed to Mu Tianbo's proposal, which was actually nothing more than each family sending one representative.

For example, as for the Duke of England, Zhang Zhiji wanted to avoid any involvement in the matter if possible, so he let Zhang Shize participate in this matter on behalf of the Duke of England's Mansion.

As Zhang Shikang was the hereditary champion marquis, he naturally participated alone.

With the addition of the Mu family, the number of members of the Heliansheng Chamber of Commerce became sixty-four.

Afterwards, under the leadership of Zhang Shikang, everyone discussed the matters of the porcelain workshop and the silk workshop.

In the end, each of the sixty-four noble families contributed 50,000 taels of silver, totaling 3.2 million taels of silver to be used for the subsequent handling of the workshop matters.

Considering that Zhang Shikang had swindled all the cash from the homes of the nobles and relatives present two years ago, and coupled with the expenses of training sailors last year, the nobles and relatives present actually didn't have much cash in their homes.

Fifty thousand taels was not a small sum, and all the nobles present were considering selling their family shops.

After all, this is only the first round of financing with Liansheng Chamber of Commerce. Judging from the momentum, there will inevitably be more expenditures.

But they are very determined about the investment. Their family is in business, and the bigger the business, the greater the investment and the slower the return.

But as long as the general direction is good, the return cycle and profit margin of a big business cannot be compared with that of an ordinary small shop opened at home.

Zhang Shikang acquiesced to this behavior. In fact, this was also deliberately guided by him. Since they had set their sights on overseas and on big business, the nobles and relatives took the initiative to sell their family's small grocery stores, cloth shops and other shops, which made room for domestic merchants.

Otherwise, if this large group of nobles were to swallow up other ordinary merchants, it would not be a good thing for the domestic business development.

Since Mu Tianbo had not been to the capital for a long time, he hosted a banquet that night and entertained all the nobles and relatives in the capital.

Zhang Shikang admired Mu Tianbo's character, and he drank with him that night, which was a rare occasion of joy.

The next day, Zhang Shikang slept in. When he got up, he saw Chen Zhuer had fallen asleep at the table.

Zhang Shikang's breakfast was on the table. He didn't wake up Chen Zhuer. He just washed up and started eating.

After dinner, Zhang Shikang took a large group of personal guards to the Xishan camp and went to the workshop area on the right.

Although the north has not yet thawed, hundreds of craftsmen of various kinds and thousands of laborers have already started working. They have to prepare a large amount of building materials.

According to the plan, a large enough area will be demarcated on the right side of the Xishan Camp, even most of Xishan will be included.

The headquarters of the Industrial and Agricultural Bureau, Ordnance Bureau, Firearms Bureau and Shipbuilding Bureau under the General Manufacturing Bureau will be within this scope.

Except for the shipyard under the Shipbuilding Bureau, the various weapons workshops and armor workshops under the Ordnance Bureau, the musket workshops and artillery workshops under the Firearms Bureau, and the institutions for agricultural tool improvement and handicraft tool improvement and research and development under the Industry and Agriculture Bureau were also built here.

According to the construction period calculated by the Ministry of Works, the first phase of the project will start with the construction of the General Administration Office and the offices of the four bureaus under it, and is expected to be completed in July this year.

As for the various workshops under the four bureaus, they will have to wait until at least the middle of next year.

Zhang Shikang certainly didn't want to wait that long. The Industrial and Peasant Bureau and the Ordnance Bureau were still of particular importance, but the development of firearms and ships was already imminent.

So he used his money ability.

The Ministry of Revenue hired an additional 3,000 laborers for the construction of the four bureaus, and at the same time required the Ministry of Works to complete the project by the end of the year.

A group of laborers were carrying stones and wood. When they saw Zhang Shikang coming to the construction site with a large group of soldiers, they were a little at a loss.

"I am Zhang Shikang, the military marshal. Don't panic, I just came to take a look.

I want to ask you, are you all here to work voluntarily?" Zhang Shikang smiled in a self-righteous and peaceful manner.

In fact, he particularly hated pretense. Even when talking to court officials or his brother Chongzhen, he never pretended. He would get angry when he should be angry, and get angry when he should get angry.

But facing this group of ragged civilians, Zhang Shikang subconsciously treated them kindly even though he didn't want to laugh.

When the group of militiamen heard Zhang Shikang's name, they immediately put down their work and knelt down to kowtow to Zhang Shikang.

"Hey, what are you doing? Although I killed many people, I didn't kill any civilians.

I am not that cruel! "

Seeing hundreds of people kneeling down one after another, Zhang Shikang felt a headache. He thought that these people were afraid of his notoriety.

"Grand Marshal, we are here to express our gratitude! If you hadn't distributed the land to us, we would have starved to death on the streets last winter!"

A man in his thirties, wearing only tattered thin clothes, knelt on the ground and said with tears in his eyes.

"Yes, Grand Marshal, we have been chatting about this while we are busy these days. We know that this is the Grand Marshal's property, so we wonder if he will come to take a look in the future.

If the Grand Marshal could come, we would kowtow to him in person to thank him for giving us a new life!"

"Grand Marshal, we would never have thought that the court would actually distribute land to us. Grand Marshal, please accept our greetings!"

……

This group of civilians were almost all recruited from Shuntian Prefecture. They talked to each other, kowtowed to Zhang Shikang and praised Zhang Shikang's kindness.

Zhang Shikang's originally calm mood was also disturbed.

"Aren't you cold wearing thin clothes?" Zhang Shikang felt a little stupid after asking.

But the group of people said:

"The officials in the Ministry of Industry have given me quilts. I do hard labor during the day, so I'm not cold, but I'm sweating."

"General, don't worry about us. We have land. We will work harder to cultivate it this year. In the fall, we will have food. We will have hope for the future!"

……

Looking at such a group of simple people, Zhang Shikang felt mixed emotions.

Just as Brother Chongzhen said before, the court owes the people too much.

They are so easily satisfied. As long as they have land, they have hope and can endure so much oppression.

Zhang Shikang asked everyone to stand up and continued to ask:

“You haven’t answered me yet, but are you here to work voluntarily?

If anyone forces you, tell me and I will capture them and let you whip them hard."

……