Chapter 172: Promoting Newspapers, Southeast Chamber of Commerce

On April 15th, the young birds shed their down and fluttered their gray-brown wings among the green branches.

After Zhou Tieyi finished training the military formation, he quickly changed his clothes, got in a bicycle, and went to the Printing Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Qinglong City.

Because it was the printing bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, even though the workload was far less than that of the major bookstores, it employed far more people than ordinary printing bookstores, more than 3,000 people! Various basic printing equipment was also replaced every year, so there was absolutely no fear of extravagance and waste.

By working at full capacity, we can meet Zhou Tieyi's initial requirements for newspaper printing.

As soon as he got off the self-driving car, a young eunuch came up to him and said respectfully, "But is General Zhou in person? My foster father is scolding us. I will take General Zhou over right now."

Zhou Tieyi nodded slightly and took a closer look at the little eunuch. There was a lot of luck on the other person's head. To be accepted as a godson by the chief eunuch Feng Zikuan, he must have talent and something special.

The young eunuch led him to the large courtyard in the center, and sure enough, he saw Feng Zikuan scolding people. In the middle, there were beating sticks and tiger benches, and he was beating two people from the printing office who were wearing manager clothes.

The sound of executions was endless. Thousands of people stood silently under the scorching sun, not daring to say a word.

This is giving yourself a soft blow.

Zhou Tieyi smiled silently in his heart.

Just like when he was at home, he could use calculations and the three officials to suppress Feng Zikuan.

The Printing Bureau of the Imperial Household Department was Feng Zikuan's territory, so he would naturally do some small tricks to establish his prestige.

But this is normal, as long as it does not affect his newspaper plans. Zhou Tieyi has seen too many such mutual tests of power and has long been accustomed to it.

"Eunuch Feng."

Zhou Tieyi stepped forward and was the first to greet.

Feng Zikuan didn't take it too seriously, and immediately replied with a cupped hand, "Zhou Zongqi."

Then he turned around and said to the executioners on both sides, "Stop."

He has a fair face, but not feminine. On the contrary, he has a sense of majesty because he has been in a high position for a long time.

Then he continued to say to Zhou Tieyi, "I'm sorry to have embarrassed General Zhou. He said he would come to the printing office today, so I came early to check the accounts and found that these servants dared to disobey him. So I set some rules for them to prevent them from ruining General Zhou's business."

Zhou Tieyi smiled and looked at the two managers' pleading eyes. "It is right to set rules, but the emperor's business is more important. If it is not a serious crime, can you allow them to make meritorious contributions while serving their sentence?"

Feng Zikuan pretended to think for a moment, then nodded and said, "Okay."

After that, he looked at the two people being tortured again, "Today, General Zhou pleaded for you two, and there is also an important matter for the emperor, so we spared you this time. Be careful when doing things! Why don't you thank General Zhou quickly."

The two managers quickly endured the pain, rolled on the ground, kowtowed to Zhou Tieyi and said, "Thank you, Mr. Zhou."

Zhou Tieyi hummed and didn't say any more words. Instead, he followed Feng Zikuan and checked the printing equipment first, while the eunuch next to him explained.

After reading it once, Zhou Tieyi frowned slightly.

Although the Printing Bureau of the Imperial Household Department employed 3,000 people, it was very different from what he had imagined a printing bureau to be.

Because it is a product of the royal family, in order to ensure the quality, many of these 3,000 people are fine engravers, and some can even be considered half calligraphers, so that the things printed by the royal family are as exquisite as works of art.

I heard that the Ministry of Internal Affairs also has a "Fengsheng Temple" in the imperial palace, which is dedicated to employing real calligraphers to copy and write things for the Emperor of Daxia to see.

This is consistent with my stereotype of feudal society.

Zhou Tieyi thought to himself that even if there was production technology and sufficient labor, it was impossible to liberate productivity.

The only advantage is that movable type printing has already been invented in this world, and the Imperial Household Department has no shortage of movable type printing presses.

Zhou Tieyi walked to a movable type printing machine and took out a newspaper-sized sheet of paper with the font requirements on it. He handed it to Feng Zikuan first and then asked, "With this size and number of characters, eight sheets in total, can you guarantee that 30,000 copies will be printed every three days?"

The initial newspaper needed a gradual adaptation process for the citizens, so Zhou Tieyi was not radical. He planned to publish a new edition every three days, and then change it to a daily newspaper after the citizens got used to it.

After Feng Zikuan took a look at it, he handed it to the young eunuch next to him.

The young eunuch looked at it carefully and replied quickly, "We just need to assign more people to pick up the characters, and we will be able to handle it naturally."

It is impossible that the printing bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs only serves his own newspaper, so Zhou Tieyi specifically asked again. After hearing the affirmative answer, he continued, "Bring the paper and ink, I will choose them."

The young eunuch hurried to get different kinds of paper and ink. Zhou Tieyi took a look and found that printing with the paper and ink from the Printing Bureau would definitely be a loss even if he could get sponsorship for the newspaper.

For the sake of future newspaper operations, Zhou Tieyi had to lower the quality from the beginning.

Anyway, even modern industrialized newspapers emphasize economy and practicality. The greatest function of newspapers is to convey information effectively, not the quality of the paper.

“The paper is all wrong!”

"what?"

The young eunuch looked at Zhou Tieyi and then at Feng Zikuan.

Feng Zikuan probably guessed the reason and said, "But what about the cost?"

Zhou Tieyi looked at Feng Zikuan. Although the other party was a senior eunuch, he was the senior eunuch in charge and was naturally more pragmatic.

He thought about it, gave a standard and said, "Pick the paper and ink, and keep the price within thirty cents."

He didn't have to pay for the labor costs of the Imperial Household Department, which was already the biggest expense saved. However, Zhou Tieyi still set the price at thirty cents instead of lower, just to leave a loophole here and take advantage of the Confucianists.

As long as the Confucians dare to follow my pricing, I will make them lose everything!
Otherwise, if you do everything well and the Confucians copy it, you can use your own better distribution channels to surpass your own "original".

This time, the young eunuch did not ask any stupid questions like whether it would "insult the emperor's will". Since Zhou Tieyi dared to do this, there must be a deep meaning behind it. His godfather next to him did not say anything, so he did not need to interrupt. He just had to do his job honestly.

Feng Zikuan frowned slightly. Thirty thousand newspapers in three days, each costing more than thirty cents, would not be easy to sell.

But he knew that Zhou Tieyi was planning to sell newspapers to ordinary people, and from Zhou Tieyi's tone, it seemed that 30,000 newspapers in three days was just an initial test, and once successful, production would be increased.

"Then, Mr. Zhou, how much do you want to charge for each newspaper?"

Only when you are in charge of the household do you know how expensive firewood and rice are. As Feng Zikuan is in charge of the Imperial Household Department, it is natural for him to pay attention to these matters.

"Five cents, and the price may drop in the future."

Zhou Tieyi said affirmatively.

Feng Zikuan quickly calculated that if the cost of each copy was 75 wen, the Ministry of Internal Affairs would lose 750 wen every three days just on newspapers, a total of 8 taels of silver, and a loss of taels a year. This was not a small amount of money. Moreover, if the sales of newspapers really increased, it was estimated that with Zhou Tieyi's personality, if he wanted to spread the word throughout the world, the loss would be too serious...

Feng Zikuan frowned and said nothing.

Zhou Tieyi did not explain directly, but said, "Eunuch Feng, I know what I am doing. I know how to settle this account in the end. Just let the Printing Bureau do it first."

After all, it is the money of His Majesty the Great Xia, and I am working for His Majesty the Great Xia. The initial losses are naturally reasonable and should be sustained.

Any big project that doesn’t lose hundreds of thousands of taels of silver in the early stages is not worthy of being called a big project!
Later, when Confucianism followed suit and was no longer able to continue, and the newspapers they published went bankrupt in large numbers, they reduced costs and increased efficiency, cleaned up the mess, and even ensured that the newspapers were profitable.

Since Zhou Tieyi was willing to take on this responsibility, Feng Zikuan naturally stopped talking and said with a smile, "Zhou Zongqi is still the most thoughtful one."

"No, I came here today not only to settle the newspaper fee, but also for another matter. I need Eunuch Feng's help. It happens to be noon now, so please accompany me to Wangluo Garden for the banquet."

Zhou Tieyi had already informed Wu Qian and Feng Zikuan about this matter yesterday. Zhou Tieyi wanted to use his status in the palace to pressure others, and Feng Zikuan naturally knew about this.

If it was someone from the government, Feng Zikuan might have given it more thought, but a group of businessmen...

Even if this group of businessmen are connected with various powerful families, they are just businessmen after all, rootless duckweed. Even if they are extremely wealthy, they can be abandoned at any time.

So Zhou Tieyi asked him to suppress a group of businessmen, and Feng Zikuan was not too shy. If you want to run the Tianjing Daily well, you have to offend people. It is said that Zhou Tieyi is ready to take action against novelists. This means that he has to withstand the pressure from the Confucianists alone.

It is only right for me, as the supervisor, to help put some pressure on the merchants.

Feng Zikuan smiled and said, "We are all working for His Majesty, so how dare I ask General Zhou to please?"

The two got on the bicycle and headed towards Wangluo Garden.

Wangluo Garden was originally the headquarters of several of the largest chambers of commerce in Xuanwu City.

It was originally the salt merchants' guild of the five states in Jiangnan. Later, because its business scope became wider, it absorbed Jiangnan merchants from other industries, forming a large guild with salt merchants as the core and cloth merchants, grain merchants, etc. as auxiliary. It then radiated from the five states in Jiangnan to the eighteen states in the southeast, making it a real behemoth.

However, in feudal society, no matter how large the merchant group was, they were just fat pigs.

Especially in this world, power is directly linked to cultivation, and Shang Dao has never even appeared at the second level. He can only bow his head and be humble, carefully respecting the big guys.

Zhou Tieyi naturally had no chance to move against the Chamber of Commerce before, and even their Zhou family was a little short of it. After all, others did not have second-grade people, but there were quite a few third-grade people!

But today is different, today I have to use my power to suppress others!
Because Zhou Tieyi informed the manager of the Chamber of Commerce that he came with the imperial order today, not only the salt merchants in Jiangnan, but also the iron merchants, inkstone merchants, wood and steel merchants and many other chambers of commerce in other places did not dare to neglect it. They cleared out Wangluo Garden in advance, cleaned the courtyard and waited for the emperor's order.

The self-driving car slowly stopped in front of Wangluo Garden and the door opened automatically. Zhou Tieyi and Feng Zikuan politely gave way to each other. Finally, Feng Zikuan said that he was only the supervisor and Zhou Tieyi was the main organizer, so he let Zhou Tieyi go first.

Of course, this tolerance also means that Zhou Tieyi has messed up and should take the main responsibility, otherwise Feng Zikuan would not be so kind.

"Welcome General Zhou and General Manager Feng."

The head of the Southeast Chamber of Commerce led other chamber of commerce representatives to greet them and bowed.

Zhou Tieyi looked over and saw that the head of the Jiangnan Chamber of Commerce was Qian Guangyun, fifty-three years old. From the information he had heard, he was a fourth-grade 'Cangxu' cultivator in the business world.

While the other party was lowering his head, Zhou Tieyi looked up at the other party's luck. It was as golden as that of Monk Shenxiu, but there was something hidden in the gold, which made it difficult for him to see clearly for a moment.

Normally, a third-grade practitioner would practice techniques to conceal their own luck.

However, the fourth-grade merchant is called 'Cang Xu', which has the ability to hide its own strength. Its own luck can also be regarded as a kind of strength, so it can affect its [real vision].

Qian Guangyun, who lowered his head, clearly felt that someone was observing him because of his "hiding" method.

His thoughts turned. Although Zhou Tieyi was powerful, he was still an eighth-rank warrior after all. So it should be Feng Zikuan who investigated him. This was also normal. So he raised his head silently and said respectfully, "My lords, do you want to set up the incense table first to receive the decree or..."

He did not see the eunuch holding the imperial edict, and felt a little strange. He did not understand why Zhou Tieyi, who had said so loudly that he had an imperial order, did not come with the imperial edict.

However, he didn't think Zhou Tieyi would dare to pretend to be the emperor's order. Now Zhou Tieyi was able to maneuver between the Queen Mother and the Three Officials. His biggest reliance was the emperor's favor. It would be too stupid to pretend to be the emperor's order.

Feng Zikuan did not answer, Zhou Tieyi smiled and said, "The emperor ordered me to run the Tianjing Newspaper and open up the channels for people to express their opinions. I am young and weak, so I asked all the prestigious people to come and discuss this matter, so that no one would say that I am too young to keep things under control."

Amazing.

Qian Guangyun looked at Zhou Tieyi, who had a handsome figure, dimples on his face and was extremely kind, and commented in his heart.

He is in the prime of his life and behaves with moderation.

It is not at all as arrogant and domineering as Confucianism claims.

What Zhou Tieyi meant by this sentence is that he came here for serious business today, not to have fun with everyone, nor to show off.

Secondly, he satirized the remarks that the Confucianists and Legalists have been promoting these days, saying that Zhou Tieyi is young and unreliable. Since I am unreliable, then I should find a few more reliable people to join us in this effort. In this way, you Confucianists and Legalists will have nothing to say.

"That's not what Mr. Zhou said."

Qian Guangyun smiled and flattered, "When I was Zhou Zongqi's age, I was still studying and doing accounting at home, but Zhou Zongqi has already started to share the country's worries. He is truly a pillar of the country."

"It is already past noon. I am sure you two have been working hard for the country and have not had your meal yet. Why don't you have your meal first?"

Qian Guangyun asked tentatively.

If we can get to the table first, today's tasks will be much easier.

This is the rule.

When Zhou Tieyi caused a big fuss in Tianbao Tower, he did not go to the drinking table at the beginning. He only went to the drinking table after things were dealt with. So even though everyone let the matter go in the end, it was not a good look.

Zhou Tieyi turned and looked at Feng Zikuan.

Feng Zikuan had given me enough face just now, so I had to let the other party say a few words, otherwise I would seem too arrogant.

Feng Zikuan was his political ally, not his subordinate.

Feng Zikuan can make the decision on such trivial matters as whether to eat first or to talk about business first.

Feng Zikuan smiled and said, "We heard that Wangluo Garden's salt-baked pigeon is a must-try, a specialty of Jiangnan. We'd like to taste it today."

After receiving Feng Zikuan's affirmative answer, all the merchants smiled. Qian Guangyun laughed loudly and said, "As for other dishes, I am not confident, but this salt-baked pigeon I have been eating since I was a child. I am sure it will satisfy Manager Feng."

Since Feng Zikuan specifically mentioned "specialties" and ordered "salt", the worst that could happen is that he would send some more Jiangnan specialties. Jiangnan specialties are not just baby pigeons.

After saying that, he personally raised his hand to lead the way, and took the two of them into Wangluo Garden.

Needless to say, the luxury of Wangluo Garden is extraordinary.

There are countless exotic flowers and trees along the way, but there are two things that Zhou Tieyi cares about most.

One is a colorful stone wall three meters high and five meters wide. The stone wall is smooth, and the restrained colorful light rises and falls in the sunlight, giving a sparkling feeling. The most amazing thing is that this stone wall itself can gather the five elements of ancestral qi, and it can be regarded as a wonderful object to assist in spiritual practice.

The other piece is a natural treasure bowl with seven dragon emblems looming inside, gathering wealth from the surroundings.

The reason why the Southeast Salt Merchants dared to display the two items was because they were all rewards bestowed by successive emperors of Great Xia. So even if Zhou Tieyi was envious, he couldn't touch them.

The atmosphere became lively as the banquet started. Because of the presence of the chief eunuch Feng Zongguan, the Jiangnan salt merchants did not hesitate to hire dancers to serve them.

But the businessmen were eloquent, knowledgeable, and deliberately flattered and amused people, which brought the atmosphere to a climax.

At the banquet, Zhou Tieyi also saw the salt-baked squab that General Manager Feng had been concerned about. Each squab was specially raised by a sixth-grade chef. It was a tonic that was no less delicious than dragon beast meat. It was less chewy than dragon beast meat, but the meat was more tender, which made people praise it highly.

For ordinary martial artists, this may be as effective in increasing qi and blood as eating a sixth-grade elixir. For example, after eating the baby pigeon, Li Guanjun does not need to practice any body-building methods. As long as he works hard to digest it, his qi and blood will naturally be replenished, which is enough to open up the qi sea in his dantian.

But for everyone present, it was really just to satisfy their appetite.

From this we can see that in the world of cultivation, the gap in the level of cultivation due to class differences is probably greater than imagined.

After eating and drinking to their heart's content and the guests were satisfied, Qian Guangyun brought the heads of various chambers of commerce and Zhou Tieyi and a few others to the garden to have tea and discuss business.

After taking a sip of tea, Zhou Tieyi smiled and said, "I'm sure you've heard about my work on the Tianjing Newspaper."

Qian Guangyun glanced around, and when the merchants around him were silent, he said, "I know."

He didn't say much, for fear of making more mistakes.

Because this matter is obviously a contest between Confucianism, Legalism and Zhou Tieyi, the Queen of Heaven. When great gods of this level fight each other, they, the businessmen, dare not easily get involved.

Zhou Tieyi took out a manuscript from the Tianjing Daily, this edition was about "Business".

It is divided into three parts. One part is where merchants talk about their business experiences, which is specially designed to help merchants become famous. The second part introduces the prices, humanities, and weather conditions of various places to help merchants summarize information. The third part is advertisements left for merchants. Merchants can post information and contact buyers or sellers according to their own needs.

(End of this chapter)