Wenren Sheng had become the Military Preparation Circuit Intendant. This was his own official post, vastly different from relying on others as before.
That meant his enterprises could expand again.
After all, no one else would smooth over too many matters for you. Only you yourself would go to such lengths for your own affairs.
The usual nobles and meritorious clans focused on pleasure in their daily lives. They would not spend effort on the lowly trade of business, which was bitter, exhausting, and troublesome.
They would not even study, much less do something like this.
They only did one thing: sit back and reap the rewards.
Whenever faced with anything difficult, their first reaction was refusal and resistance.
Even Zheng Zhilong, after monopolizing the eastern seas, had lost his drive and become a watchdog guarding the gate.
Heroes like Cao Cao and Liu Bei, who struggled their whole lives and fought their whole lives, were still rare.
This time, Wenren Sheng began involving himself in maritime trade.
His method was simple: he prepared one hundred dan of raw silk. Each dan could earn a profit of one hundred taels. He bought it from silk farmers for ninety taels, sold it to sea merchants for one hundred eighty taels, and the sea merchants resold it to the Island Country for three hundred forty taels.
Naturally, that was premium-grade silk.
That alone meant another ten thousand taels in profit.
Using the feudal and corrupt method of winning people over, Wenren Sheng gave money, land, and wives to soldiers who had displayed loyalty and courage in previous battles... then recruited them under his Kuai Ji Shipping Company as sailors and guards.
They were, in truth, retainers.
Great Ming soldiers eagerly took up such opportunities.
Ordinary people had no way at all to