"What Miss Blue?"

Zhu Yuanzhang knocked Zhu Kai on the head and said, "No matter what he is, he is still your elder. Don't bully him anymore."

Zhu Kai agreed with a smile: "Sure, sure."

Zhu Yuanzhang also knew that Zhu Kai agreed readily now, but it would be a different story when it came to doing it. It was unlucky for Lan Yu to meet Zhu Kai.

Lan Yu is the same. Why does he have to offend Zhu Kai when he can offend anyone else? Isn't this just asking for trouble?

Zhu Yuanzhang shook his head helplessly and said to Zhu Kai: "We have prepared it for you a long time ago. When the time comes, you can call Lan Yu over and recruit him. It is up to you how to use him. Remember, boy, this is a capable general we found for your elder brother. Don't waste him."

"Just him?"

Zhu Kai was about to say that Daddy’s eyesight was not good, but when he saw Zhu Yuanzhang’s eyes, Zhu Kai swallowed his words back: “Okay, just do as Daddy said.”

She's just Miss Lan. If she doesn't obey, just beat her.

……

After Zhu Kai discussed with Zhu Yuanzhang, he went to Ma Xiuying to tell her about this matter. Judging from Ma Xiuying's reaction, she seemed to have known that he was going to the grassland. Presumably, Zhu Yuanzhang had discussed it with Ma Xiuying before looking for him.

Zhu Kai asked Ma Xiuying a question: "Mom, you usually weave cloth using cotton and yarn... If you use wool, can you weave it into cloth?"

“Not really feasible.”

Ma Xiuying seemed to have tried it before, and said to Zhu Kai: "The wool is too coarse, and there is oil on the wool, so it is impossible to weave it."

"Well, what if I could destroy the oil on the wool?"

Zhu Kai looked at Ma Xiuying and said, "The most important thing about wool is that it keeps you warm. As for the workmanship, we don't have high requirements. The common people are now trying to solve the problem of food and clothing. Things that are too delicate don't mean much to them. Let's solve the problem of food and clothing for the common people first, so that they can gradually have money in their pockets. Then we will increase our research and development efforts and strive to develop better wool products. That's when we can make money."

Hearing what Zhu Kai said, Ma Xiuying pondered for a while, nodded and said: "If you say so, it is feasible, but I am not very professional in doing these things. The textile industry in Suzhou and Hangzhou is developing quite well. They should have more skillful craftsmen there. You can find some master craftsmen through the silk and satin shops in Suzhou and Hangzhou and ask them to help with the research."

"Okay, I'll listen to you."

Ma Xiuying helped Zhu Kai figure out the direction of development and the solution to the problem. Zhu Kai felt much more relaxed. He lowered his head and began to wolf down his food. While eating, he said to Ma Xiuying, "Mom, don't worry. With me here, no one in our Ming Dynasty will starve to death in the future. The grassland will belong to the Ming Dynasty. I can use the grassland to raise a lot of poultry so that the people can eat meat... In at most 20 years, we will have meat on the table for every meal."

"it is good."

Ma Xiuying also smiled, as if this answer made her feel that letting Zhu Kai go had a profound meaning.

Preventing the people from starving to death and allowing them to eat meat... and having meat at every meal, this is something that no other dynasty has ever achieved, right?
Ma Xiuying reminded Zhu Kai again: "You can go to the grassland, but you have to wait until the children are born first. Otherwise, if you, as a father, are not around when the children are born, what will happen?"

"It's natural."

Zhu Kai immediately said, "I am not my unreliable father. I was not around when my child was born."

"Cough cough..."

Zhu Yuanzhang had a dark face and was coughing dryly behind him. When he looked at Zhu Kai, Zhu Yuanzhang didn't need to hide his intention to hit him.

You little bastard, your butt is starting to itch again after not being spanked for a few days, right?
Ma Xiuying glanced at the silly-looking Zhu Kai, then looked at Zhu Yuanzhang, rolled her eyes and ignored the unreliable father and son.

If you talk about unreliable, neither this old guy nor the little guy is reliable.

……

When it comes to silk and satin shops, Zhu Kai has one under his control.

Xu Miaoyun is a good business person. She doesn't have Zhu Kai's creativity, but she is not inferior to Zhu Kai in business.

Zhu Kai owns twenty-three streets in Yingtian Prefecture, and the rent he collects every year is astronomical. Zhu Kai told Xu Miaoyun that money kept in the warehouse is just a pile of useless metal. Xu Miaoyun listened to Zhu Kai and invested all the money she earned from business.

As the entire social structure of the Ming Dynasty gradually stabilized and people's income increased steadily, Xu Miaoyun gradually realized that there would be more room for development in food, clothing and daily necessities, so she took the lead in acquiring a large number of Suzhou silk and satin shops and integrated them, making her silk and satin shop the only one in Suzhou, Hangzhou and Yingtian.

The original silk and satin shop owners fully supported Xu Miaoyun's acquisition of their businesses. With Zhu Kai's famous brand, how much trouble would they save when doing business? Moreover, when Xu Miaoyun acquired these silk and satin shops, it was not a compulsory acquisition, but he also left enough dry shares for these bosses. These bosses had no reason to refuse.

So, when Zhu Kai wanted to find some skilled craftsmen in the textile industry, it was not too easy. Xu Miaoyun just sent a letter to the owner of the silk shop, and soon the craftsmen came to see Zhu Kai.

Zhu Kai met them at Prince Wu's mansion.

These craftsmen did not expect to see Zhu Kai, and they were immediately panicked. They had never seen Zhu Kai before, but they had heard something about him. The second prince was the number one evil man in Yingtian Prefecture, and seeing him was not a good thing.

Zhu Kai didn't care about that. He asked someone to bring two sheep over, and then said, "Today, I want to treat you to meat. These two sheep will be our meals. But there is one thing I need to make clear to you. After eating the sheep, you have to use their wool and weave it into cloth. Do you have any objections?"

Weaving wool into cloth?

After hearing this, the craftsmen were a little hesitant.

One of the master craftsmen seemed to have done this kind of work before. After hesitating for a while, he said, "Your Highness, some people in the north will wear wool with the skin as a coat. This is very effective in keeping warm. Cloth woven from wool... although it can be made, wool is too coarse. The cloth made from it is far inferior to silk, and it also has a lot of smell. There is no point in making it."

There is not much point in spending time studying wool weaving. It is a completely thankless job.

Other craftsmen also agreed, thinking that there was no point in studying wool, as silk was the biggest consumable, and that Zhu Kai should focus on how to raise silkworms.

"fart!"

Zhu Kai slammed the table suddenly, scaring the dozen or so craftsmen present.

Are you angry?
He is worthy of being the number one villain in Yingtian Prefecture. If he is not satisfied with what others say, he will just turn against them.

But they are all telling the truth. Is it not okay to tell the truth?

"I think you've eaten too much refined grains, and you don't care about anything else, right?" Zhu Kai looked at the dozen or so craftsmen present, "I'm here to discuss with you how to turn wool into cotton cloth, not to listen to you saying it can't be done this way. I'm telling you, you have to do this, no matter what you want to do!"

"If you do it well, I will give you a big reward. If you don't do it well, you can go to the grassland and feed my sheep."

Zhu Kai will not indulge these craftsmen. Do they really think they are professionals?

Indeed, silk is a very, very high-end product, but such a high-end product uses too little raw material and is more complicated to make. This means that silk is destined not to become a widely used product by the public. What do they use the most now?
cotton!

cotton!

Cotton is good, but its cultivation requires a lot of manpower. It takes more than half a year from planting to harvesting, and people have to keep an eye on it all the time to prevent pests and diseases from causing a reduction in cotton production.

But what about wool?

Zhu Kai is very clear that wool, a renewable resource, will become the mainstream of the market.

These craftsmen in front of him had no idea of ​​exploring and innovating, but just stuck to the existing things. Zhu Kai was very dissatisfied with this and directly overturned the table.

In the five thousand years of history, there are only four great inventions, which cannot be said to be a very productive invention. Of course, there are also many people whose inventions are not very famous. For example, the makers of the curved plow were only mentioned in history books, and then nothing else.

why?
Because of Confucianism!

During the Warring States Period when a hundred schools of thought were contending with each other, the Mohist school developed and innovated tools, but was called a wild school without a king or father by Huang-Lao and Confucianism. Later, a derogatory idiom "strange and lewd skills" was made up to satirize inventors. Since then, the Mohist school has declined further. Later, everyone seemed to have become accustomed to being self-contained and determined not to invent anything. If they saw that others had a useful invention, they would just take it and use it without paying any patent fees, which also saved time and money spent on research and development.

These craftsmen in front of us are just limited by the times. It’s not that they don’t have foresight, but that they have never thought about developing new products.

But when it comes to internal competition, these craftsmen are definitely experts.

Instead of developing raw materials for new products, they started with dyeing, using bright colors to compete for market share...

Zhu Kai was also helpless about this. The only solution he could think of was to use money to stimulate them and make them rack their brains to do it.

Zhu Kai clapped his hands, and Mao Xiang and Jiang Lin each came in carrying a tray. Zhu Kai removed the red silk cloth covering the trays, and the gleaming golden light of the gold ingots immediately flashed before everyone's eyes.

When the craftsmen saw the two trays of gold ingots, their eyes immediately widened.

Zhu Kai looked at the craftsman in front of him and said directly: "I have the money. Can you weave wool into cloth?"

"can!"

"Don't worry, Your Highness. We will definitely figure it out!"

"Your Highness, I have done this before, but the results were not very good. I will continue to study it when I return!"

The craftsmen said one after another that they would definitely be able to complete the research and development of woolen cloth according to Zhu Kai's requirements. Zhu Kai looked at the important task and nodded with great satisfaction: "Very good, we will develop it within half a year and sell it as a new product this winter... All the money will be yours, otherwise you can go to the grassland to feed sheep."

Zhu Kai's title of "the biggest villain in Yingtian Prefecture" was still quite intimidating. His threat made the craftsmen silent, and they suddenly felt that the gold ingots on the table were no longer attractive.

This money is nothing at all. What he needs is to get the finished product out as soon as possible.

Can Zhu Kai do it himself?

Sure, but Zhu Kai has more to do than just this one thing. He has many more things to do. If he wastes a lot of time on just this one thing, it would be a waste of time.

Zhu Kai did not hide anything. During the meal, he told the craftsman what he knew about wool weaving: "There are many scales on the wool that are invisible to our eyes. To weave the wool into cloth, we need to boil it in hot water to destroy the oil and some trace substances on it, so that weaving will be relatively simple."

In fact, detergent is needed when boiling wool, but detergent... has a very high technological content, and Zhu Kai doesn't know what kind of chemical reaction the detergent is made through, so he simply teaches it to the craftsmen in various silk shops and lets them do the research.

I've already told them that the wool needs to be boiled and that something needs to be added to make it suitable for weaving. I've told them so much, it's impossible that they can't make it anymore, right?

……

After Lan Yu apologized to Zhu Kai, he has been waiting for Zhu Kai's call.

He knew that he would be Zhu Kai's man from now on, and all his actions would have to obey Zhu Kai's arrangements, but... Zhu Kai didn't summon him after staring at him for so long, which made Lan Yu a little anxious.

Zhu Kai wouldn’t forget him, right?
Lan Yu suddenly panicked. Based on his understanding of Zhu Kai, if Zhu Kai had forgotten, it meant that he still didn't want to use him, and Zhu Kai would use more brutal methods to deal with him.

"This little brat!"

Lan Yu was so angry that he smashed the table, but there was nothing he could do. His future was in the hands of Zhu Kai, and he couldn't find any chance to resist.

Lan Yu felt so ashamed of being bullied by a junior.

"When I see him again, I will make sure he knows what an elder is!"

Lan Yu was determined to give it his all. Even if he could never lead troops to fight in his lifetime, he would never bow down to Zhu Kai. He felt that he had done the best he could. Zhu Biao, Zhu Kai and Zhu Yuanzhang all knew that he could not rebel, but he was just blindly loyal to Zhu Biao and wanted to help Zhu Biao deal with all enemies on his way to the throne, including Zhu Kai.

But Lan Yu discovered that Zhu Biao was not the modest gentleman he had seen, but a ruthless guy with a treacherous heart and ruthless tactics. He knew that his worries about Zhu Biao and his precautions against Zhu Kai were unnecessary, so Lan Yu no longer thought about protecting or killing anyone, but instead thought about taking advantage of the opportunity to lead troops into battle to realize his dream of being granted a title of nobility and becoming a prime minister.

It can't be delayed any longer. The Ming Dynasty's generals are too capable in fighting. If he doesn't go out to fight, he won't even have the chance to drink soup.

Lan Yu wanted to take the initiative to find Zhu Kai again, surrender to Zhu Kai in person, and let Zhu Kai lead troops to fight for him.

However, based on Lan Yu's understanding of Zhu Kai, Zhu Kai was not the kind of person who went back on his word, and with Zhu Biao pleading for him, Lan Yu did not think that Zhu Kai could do anything too excessive to him.

Lan Yu kept reminding himself in his heart: Wait, wait a little longer.

When Zhu Kai sent someone to call Lan Yu, Lan Yu was very excited. It seemed that what she thought was right. Zhu Kai remembered her. Her waiting and patience were finally not in vain. (End of this chapter)