Interest Alignment

As soon as these words were spoken, the expressions of all the military generals present changed instantly.

Cutting off someone's source of wealth is akin to murdering their parents! They had just smashed twenty-four million taels into this!

"Who dares to seize His Majesty by the throat? This old minister will lead troops to flatten them!" Zhang Jing's eyes widened in fury. Cutting off wealth was like killing one's parents, and now these four factories were the lifeblood of their military faction. Who would dare touch them?

"We absolutely cannot let outsiders lay a finger on this!" Zhang Jing was so anxious his eyes turned red. "Your Majesty! We must hold the lime and iron mines in our own hands!"

"This world is ultimately ruled by the law," Wang Hao waved his hand, his true intentions finally revealed. "There is a way. To ensure the completeness of our industrial chain, as Xishan also has large tracts of lime and iron mines, I can immediately open two more factories: the Royal Lime Factory and the Royal Iron Factory."

"It's the same old rule: one million shares per factory, at ten taels of silver per share! I will take fifty percent of the dry shares for the land."

Wang Hao stared down with a torch-like gaze. "Directorate of Ceremonial, are you still in?"

Sun Li roared without hesitation, "We're in! Even if the Inner Court has to starve, we will subscribe to another twenty percent! Four million taels—this servant will immediately send someone to borrow from loan sharks!"

Even the eunuchs were going to borrow from loan sharks to buy! The atmosphere had been pushed to its absolute peak!

Over three hundred military nobles were completely backed into a corner. If they did not buy the source, their previous investments would be controlled by others. To protect their existing interests, they could only madly continue throwing money into it!

"Your Majesty, the Duke of Ying's estate subscribes to another fifty thousand shares!"

"The Duke of Dingguo's estate follows suit!"

"This minister will go sell my old ancestral home in Jiangnan! I am buying into the iron factory!"

"This minister still has twenty thousand mu of fertile land in my hometown; tomorrow I will pawn it all! I subscribe to fifty thousand shares!"

Wang Hao coughed. "Fertile land can be evaluated at market price and used as ready silver to subscribe for shares."

"Your Majesty, this minister offers thirty thousand mu of land."

"The Duke of An's estate offers another 1.5 million taels!"

It was another frenzied scramble to buy!

Amidst the mad atmosphere, another twelve million taels worth of shares was snatched up in an instant!

Thus, within a short half-hour.

Without spending a single dime, Wang Hao successfully raked in 120 million taels relying solely on the modern concepts of a joint-stock system and painting the grand illusion of industrialization! This was even more profitable than confiscating the properties of corrupt officials!

In the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Chongzhen lacked money so badly he hanged himself, but Wang Hao used empty promises to directly stuff his privy purse to the bursting point! The Great Zhou had been established for a thousand years; Wang Hao could not help but want to raid the cellars of those millennial noble families just thinking about how much wealth they had hidden away. That is all my money!

But money was always just a means to an end.

Looking at the military heads below, tightly clutching their share subscription certificates, sweating profusely yet exceptionally excited, Wang Hao knew that his strategic goal had been completely achieved.

"My beloved ministers," Wang Hao slowly stood up, his tone turning solemn.

The three hundred military generals stood at attention simultaneously.

"These six factories are our shared cornucopia. But this also requires massive investment and protection. Therefore, I have decided to place all the post stations across the provinces under the unified jurisdiction of the Directorate of Ceremonial. It must be foolproof! The Inner Court will be responsible for using the cement we produce ourselves to pave roads across the entire country!"

If it were the past, if the emperor wanted to hand over the post stations—the throats of the realm—to the eunuchs, this group of military generals would have cursed his mother in their hearts, even if they didn't voice their opposition.

But now?

"Your Majesty is wise!" Zhang Jing was the first to shout loudly, his face glowing red. "These post stations should have been managed by the Directorate of Ceremonial long ago! Only when our own people manage them can these cement roads be built quickly, and our goods be sold all over the world!"

"Whoever dares to oppose the Directorate of Ceremonial taking over the post stations is crossing us imperial guards!" The Duke of An directly drew his blade halfway, speaking with a ferocious expression.

Wang Hao smiled in satisfaction.

This was the binding of interests! From today on, these nobles, military generals, and eunuchs were no longer court factions fighting their own battles. Aboard the massive profit-driven aircraft carrier known as the Royal Group, they were thoroughly tied to the emperor's war chariot.

They had become the Great Zhou's most resolute and ruthless Royalists!

This is only the beginning, Wang Hao said silently in his heart. When the war machine of the Great Zhou truly starts moving, when this hybrid power of industry and capital takes shape, even the barbarians on this planet will only be able to tremble at my feet.

This was also the reason why the military nobles sided with the Directorate of Ceremonial at the last grand court assembly, supporting their control over the post stations.

The night grew deeper.

Pulling his thoughts away from that frenzied stock offering assembly in Xishan and the grand court assembly, Wang Hao's gaze once again focused on the capital city surging with undercurrents beneath his feet.

Over the past few days, fearing that a long night would bring many dreams and they might lose this grand scheme to get rich, the eunuchs and nobles continuously transported a full ninety-six million taels of silver and title deeds for 5.6 million mu of land in the capital region, worth twenty-four million taels, through various secret channels into the palace's privy purse and the vaults of the newly established Royal Bank.

Now, Wang Hao truly did not lack money. Aside from the bottom-of-the-box one hundred million taels of silver rewarded by his system, after deducting what he had spent, he still had thirty-four million taels left from confiscating properties. Adding the current ninety-six million taels of silver, Wang Hao's liquid capital amounted to 230 million taels of silver. One must know that the Great Zhou had thirty-six provinces and a population of 1.6 billion; at its absolute peak, its annual tax revenue was 120 million taels. This money was enough for Wang Hao to fully showcase his skills.

Moreover, this money was currently being minted into silver coins by the Silverwork Bureau. The silver coin formula was 89 percent silver, 10 percent copper, and 1 percent tin, which meant this sum would eventually turn into 250 million silver coins.

Let's not forget the ultimate weapon for harvesting silver—the stock exchange. This was Wang Hao's trump card to swindle silver from the noble families. Just thinking about it was thrilling.

Wang Hao still stood atop the corner watchtower with his hands clasped behind his back, his profound gaze seeming to pierce through the heavy palace walls. His thoughts involuntarily drifted back to a month ago. That was the crazy beginning of truly tearing apart the feudal soil of the Great Zhou Dynasty and forcefully injecting it with the poison of modern capital.

A month ago, under Wang Hao's imperial decree, a future behemoth—the Great Zhou Royal Construction Company—was quietly established and registered under the Directorate of Palace Eunuchs.

For this company, Wang Hao could be said to have invested heavily. He directly recruited two thousand low-level martial artists. In this high-martial world, if the strength of martial artists wasn't used for killing but for infrastructure development, their efficiency could only be described as terrifying.

Cooperating with the two divisions of the Eunuch Army, in just a month's time on the wastelands surrounding Xishan, twenty thousand sets of two-story grayish-white small houses—each occupying three hundred square meters and featuring an independent courtyard—sprang up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain. Although the designs of these houses were simple and lacked any carved beams or painted rafters, with the reinforcement of cement and steel, they were extremely sturdy, and the construction efficiency was incredibly high.

With housing secured, the next and most core step was—people. Without enough cheap labor, those six major Royal Factories in Xishan would just be empty shells.

Therefore, with one thousand Brocade Guards clearing the way, the recruitment offices of the six major factories and the Royal Construction Company marched with great fanfare directly into the poorest, most chaotic mud pit of the capital—the South City slums.