"What!?" Xu Guangqi stood up on the spot, and he said in disbelief: "If you don't donate a penny, will you stop us?" What is this for, are these businessmen all traitors? This kind of good thing of building roads and roads with the country and the people, they are sitting on hundreds of millions of property, not only do not help, but also come to stop it! What a reason! ”

Xu Guangqi looked excited, he couldn't believe it at all, Zhou Ming said beside him: "My lord, please rest easy, the biggest reason why this situation is like this is because for these century-old rich businessmen, most of them have their own business channels, and they don't urgently need these roads." On the contrary, if these roads are built, it will even seriously affect his commercial base, so that some transportation channels that were originally only in their own hands will now become available to anyone, and thus become worthless, so that the prices of some of their industrial goods will continue to be reduced, and His Majesty will call this model 'monopoly management'. ”

"What do you mean by 'monopolistic management'?" Xu Guangqi didn't understand!

Zhou Ming explained: "My lord, the 'monopolistic operation' mentioned by His Majesty actually refers to the fact that these businessmen use certain channels or technical means to obtain the pricing power of a certain commodity, which is called monopoly. For example, some of the special commodities operated by these merchants, such as some silk, tea, medicinal materials and other special commercial products, the purchase channels of these products are often controlled by one or several of them, and then these commercial products go through their channels, and the price in the capital has increased more than tenfold on the basis of their original purchases. All the commodities in the capital that adults see are basically monopolized by these people, and the market prices of all commodities are decided by these people, but it is not they who monopolize these commodities, but these century-old merchants discuss and decide together. Therefore, the construction of this road is to move the interests of these people, once this road is completed, their surrounding and even farther channels will be affected, so that the price of their goods plummets, as the saying goes, cutting off other people's wealth is like killing parents, Your Majesty's move is tantamount to becoming an enemy with these people! ”

"This..."Xu Guangqi listened to these words, and was a little stunned for a while, he was speechless, he never thought that there were so many bends and curves in this, he could think of who was behind these people with tens of millions of assets who were supporting, it turned out that the emperor had so many connotations in building this road, so the pressure they had to face was far more than just these cityscape merchants from the court, which was even more fatal.

Perhaps seeing Xu Guangqi's look, Zhou Ming continued: "Mr. Xu, don't worry, the villain just now just said the bad side, but it is not without a good side. For example, it's not like no one will fund us at all, the villain has prepared some other lists here, and these people are likely to come to our aid! ”

Saying that, Zhou Ming took out another list and put it in front of Xu Guangqi, Xu Guangqi was a little puzzled, and he said, "These people are..."

Zhou Ming explained with a smile: "My lord, although the net worth of these people is not as good as those century-old brands, these people also have a lot of net worth, and they can also take out 1.8 million taels." And the reason why these people will help us is because they are the ones who want this road to be completed the most. These people have the strength but no ability to develop, and they have been oppressed by those century-old brands for many years, and they have been firmly grasped by these old businesses because of some channel problems. Now His Majesty is going to build this road, which is undoubtedly a great opportunity for these people! Therefore, these businessmen hope that this road can be built the most, and the reason why His Majesty took out tens of millions of silver and played a banner to raise funds is to pull this group of people onto the ship.

Defeat the arrogance of this older generation of firms and pull up a group of our own supporters. In fact, with these businesses, they can raise funds to build roads by themselves, but they can't do this by themselves, they don't have the strength and power! The reason why they will help, this second purpose is to spread the line under His Majesty, in this world, there is only one person under His Majesty who can say that he will take out the money, and if he says that the road will be repaired, no one can use any reason to stop His Majesty! His Majesty's purpose was not in the road itself, but in the commerce of the whole north. Therefore, what Lord Xu has to do is to start construction as soon as possible, and the bigger and faster Lord Xu's actions, the more these businessmen will believe that this road will be completed, and the more supporters His Majesty will get. ”

Zhou Ming slowly said these words to Xu Guangqi, and these words were indeed the heart that Li Jiancheng talked to him when he sent Zhou Ming, and he had a low relationship with him. He knew that Xu Guangqi, the old man, was determined, but to say that his ability and thinking were not so remarkable, Xu Guangqi was not unused in history, and in the end, his ideals and goals were ultimately frustrated, which has a lot to do with a person's ability, there is the heart of the left world, and the world without the ability of the left world abounds! That's why Li Jiancheng sent Zhou Ming to assist him. In fact, it is a combination of ability and determination, and the so-called politics is not the ability to guide the lower with the determination of the higher-ups? This is the way of kings.

Xu Guangqi now understands the purpose of Li Jiancheng's road construction, it turns out that the emperor's purpose is not the road itself, but the wealth that is pinched in the hands of the merchants, this kind of wealth can really be ignored by any emperor, the Ming Taizu has the idea of hiding the wealth from the people, so he almost does not charge any commercial taxes, and in the end all these merchants are cheaper. In addition, the 'monopolistic operation' just now made Xu Guangqi think, could it be that the ultimate goal of the emperor to win over a group of merchants was to control the market price of goods? Can this really be done by the imperial court? Is the notion of hiding the wealth from the people completely wrong?

On one occasion, Xu Guangqi realized the incredibleness of this young emperor. He thought of his friendship with the emperor, his guarantee in front of the emperor, and he was also very supportive of the emperor's ambition, so he couldn't die for his confidant? Xu Guangqi stood up here, he re-examined this secretary named Zhou Ming, he could say such a thing is tantamount to repeating the emperor's meaning, this is also a signal that the emperor wants him to pay attention to the person in front of him, this Xu Guangqi naturally also realized.

He patted Zhou Ming on the shoulder and said, "Then Secretary Zhou, let us do a good job of this matter and make a response to the trust of His Majesty!" ”

Zhou Ming's eyes were also burning with flames, in the eyes of Zhou Ming, a young man, he could meet a young emperor like Li Jiancheng, from what the emperor said to him, he regarded this encounter more seriously than Xu Guangqi, and he lived a lifetime as an ideal and as an individual, he hugged his fists and said to Xu Guangqi: "It's an adult!" ”