Everyone sat in the intricately designed inner courtyard while admiring the flowers and sipping on tea. Yan Qi was once again shocked at the elegance of this place. It really felt like a place for scholars to live.
“Why don’t you report on everything that has happened in the past six months? This will help these guys understand a little as well.” Niu Tan spoke to Yan Qi.
Yan Qi nodded, “Starting with the ships, the consortium has a total of 12 ships with all the families having 4 each. One of our ships was damaged by some pirates but it is being fixed.
We currently control about half of the total grains coming out of the Indu Kingdom and sixty percent of all grains sold in the Qian Kingdom go through us. We estimate that currently, we are responsible for eighty percent of all the imports and exports within the Qian kingdom borders.
The Wind Express is running even smoother. We have already opened supermarkets in most of the large cities and towns in the name of the four families.
As you suggested, we controlled the market but we still compete with each other for the market share in every business.”
After every sentence Yan Qi spoke, a bomb went off in the seven scholars’ minds. Wasn’t this too exaggerated?
Wan Niu was the first to question, “This consortium is an organization between the Yan, Li, Lin and Qin families? And we are the backers of this organization?
Niu Tan corrected, “The Dao Seekers only cooperate with them and advise them in a business capacity. It is more appropriate to say that we are raising them as our backers.”
Wan Niu suddenly had a flash of understanding, ‘So this is what you meant. You want to take control of the nation financially.”
Pan Fan asked confused, “But wouldn’t the imperial court and the martial clans and sects oppose this consortium then?”
“You need to pay attention. Who do you think works security for all the wind expresses of the consortium? They are already raking in huge amounts of gold so they won’t be the first ones to attack. As for the court, I am guessing you already have the king and a number of officials in your pockets?” Zhou Yi analyzed in his always calm and cool manner.
Yan Qi nodded in appreciation, “Yes, we have been handing over new liquor, women, and novel things we import every month to the king on top of the gold and the ships we already give him.
As for the officials, those who have businesses get things from us cheaper, and for those who don’t have businesses we gave them some shops. We have 1/3rd of the court but since we still lack gold we are taking things slow.”
Wan Niu nodded, in his long life, he had seen similar cases of merchants becoming as powerful as the crown itself. But every time the merchants would be destroyed because they lacked the strength to keep that influence and gold.
He asked, “What if the martial clans and sects decided to band together to attack you and divide the spoils for themselves?”
Yan Qi smiled, “We already control three mid-sized sects and we are continuing to put in resources to expand our own martial artists and normal guard army secretly. We also have cooperation deals in the talks where we will let the top five martial clans in on the business of building ships.”
The scholars were shocked. Wasn’t this consortium bleeding money from everywhere?
Liu Yong asked what everyone was thinking, “Won’t selling ships business give away your advantage? You are losing a lot of money everywhere like this.”
Niu Tan gave a sly smile and Yan Qi outright laughed. “Sorry for my rudeness. To make more money, don’t we have you guys?
The ships are just a basis to start and expand our trade network. Sooner or later others will replicate it so why not make money by selling them ourselves?
What we will make money off of is the trade routes and network we created by selling products invented by your school. We will always be the ones in the lead.”
The seven of them had different expressions. Some had a light of understanding in their eyes while others were dumbfounded.
The conversation continued and the seven scholars got to know more about the cooperation between their organization and the consortium. They also learned of the details regarding the contracts that the Dao Seeker School had signed with the consortium.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Niu Tan handed over some papers with instructions for new products to be launched by the consortium like soap, glass, ceramics, and rubber. There were also detailed descriptions and illustrations of food crops like corn, potato, wheat, spices, and tomato.
“Work on these while expanding the Wind Express business to every city of every country in the region. Don’t care about saving money, just invest as much as needed and give out benefits to everyone and tie up the interests of the whole region.
Find specialties of each region and promote them in other regions. Be in control but don’t be afraid to give away the benefits. And try to gain as much martial and military strength as possible. ” Niu Tan finally sent off Yan Qi with the papers and some advice.
The papers he had given would be enough for the Yan family to work on for at least 2-3 years. With Yan Mo and Yan Qi in control, unless they met with something too tricky. it should be fine. And 2 years later, Niu Tan will put his final part of the plan to control the region into action.
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Feng Ji was looking at a glass slide through the microscope lens and marveling at the world of microorganisms in the water. He was disgusted but also excited at the same time. He had never thought that life could be that small.
Next to him, Wan Niu was observing a piece of skin under the microscope and recording some data. If only we could make this thing more precise, he mumbled. The observations he made through the microscope were only slightly better than what a Divine Master realm martial artist could do.
The two of them had chosen to specialize in biology the last time Niu Tan asked them about it. Wan Niu guessed that understanding the human body would let him break past the Divine Master realm while Feng Ji just found biology fascinating. They had their own separate biology lab with all sorts of glass tools.
Zhou Yi who loved to stare at the night sky obviously chose astronomy and physics and he got a telescope. The first few nights, he was harassed by his fellow scholars who wanted to look at outer space with the telescope as well.
Unexpectedly, Chang Bo, the quiet one, wanted to only study mathematics and business. The day of the meeting with Yan Qi impacted him in profound ways. Niu Tan made him focus more on math while giving him some books on business and governance. He needed someone to deal with that stuff anyway.
Jia Yang and Pan Fan both took to chemistry like they were born for it. They had already started studying elements and their laboratory would have some occasional sounds of explosions every week.
The largest but most timid guy Liu Yong chose to study physics. He had already made some advancements in fluid mechanics and some other hypotheses of Aristotle and Archimedes that Niu Tan had included in their physics book as a question.
Niu Tan was very happy with how the progress was looking. So while planning the development of the Xiao village with the village chief, he mentioned taking in the children of the village as students. He would provide two meals for every child who enrolled.
With the renovations and development planned for the village, there would be plenty of money to go around in every family so it was likely that they would send their children to study. After all, getting to study was still a huge privilege for these poor villagers.
And so, after one year of studying under Niu Tan, the seven scholars were now the teachers of the Dao Seeker School.
The curriculum was simple. The kids would be taught to read and write along with the standard literature and cultural subjects that the scholars had to learn. Along with morning lessons in martial arts, this would continue for one year. They would all teach in rotation during this period.
After the one-year period was over, each of the teachers will teach one hour of each of their specialized courses while martial arts would still continue the same. This would continue for two years until the students get to choose which specialization they would like to choose and help develop the chosen department.
Niu Tan planned to increase the periods of study before the specialization by one year every batch after the first batch. This way, as the subjects get more advanced, a systematic education model would be created.
If things go well, the seven scholars will become a dean of their own departments after ten or twenty years and there will be tens of more sub-departments under them for more fields of study.
After discussing his plans and visions with the scholars, Niu Tan was prepared to welcome the first batch of students to the Dao Seeker School.
A group of 24 students all between the ages of 7 to 18 was sitting down neatly on the specially made carpets with their slate and chalk in front of them. They all had some curiosity and anticipation in their eyes.
Niu Tan wanted his school and his teachings to have a more ceremonial and traditional feeling. Like the stories he had read about ancient teacher-disciple relationships, he wanted to cultivate a sense of respect and reverence towards knowledge and teachers in his students.
So he created his own ceremonies and rules for the students. “Before we start, kowtow to the heavens three times and kowtow to your teacher once.”
The students looked confused but they did as they were told. As they kowtowed to the heavens, they heard their teacher speak.
“Heavens represent the truth. You guys as my students must respect and pursue truth above everything else.”
Then the 24 kids turned toward their teacher and kowtowed.
“A teacher for a day, a father for a lifetime. As a teacher, we are half a parent to you from today. We will teach and treat you as such and we expect the same respect from you all.”
Although he was only in his late teens, commoners in this world would start having kids at 14-15 years of age so it didn’t sound too out of place.
As for whether they would revere the teachers in the future, he would instill that respect and reverence in their bones every day until it becomes instinct to these kids.
Ceremonies and traditions were very effective in passing on these kinds of sentiments. Some might call it brainwashing while Niu Tan thought it was part of education.
“Everyone will come to school before sunrise from tomorrow. Anyone who is late will not get their morning lunch.” Niu Tan instructed.
He wanted to teach his students basic martial arts and mental cultivation in the morning. Since it can help improve brain function, Niu Tan wanted to take full advantage of internal energy and create a bunch of prodigies.
“Now, let us all embark on a journey to the Dao of Science.”