The disgraced official I took care of was actually Zhu Houcong's childhood friend.

Chapter 556

Having roamed the coast of the Ming Dynasty as a bandit without any official status for several years, Wang Zhi had become almost obsessed with being ennobled and appointed as a general. He wanted to return to his hometown, the place he dreamed of going back to, after achieving fame and success.

As for the memorials from the Frankish side, there were more. The developments in the Frankish side were somewhat dramatic. When these people set sail for the Frankish side, Zhou Chu remembered the tulip mania in the Netherlands in his previous life, so he proposed that the fleet take some precious flowers from the Ming Dynasty with them, mainly peonies.

Tulips originate from Central Asia. Transporting tulips from Central Asia to Europe would be time-consuming, laborious, and completely unnecessary.

Zhou Chu knew very well that tulips were completely hyped up. At that time, the upper class in the Netherlands and even the whole of Europe considered it an honor to own a tulip, and even the princes of the royal family were very fond of tulips.

This led to a rather comical situation where many people pooled their money to buy a single tulip bulb, and even divided the tulip bulb into shares, specifying how much each person owned.

It's easy to imagine how outrageous the price of tulips was at the time.

This incident gave Zhou Chu an opportunity to exploit these European countries. These white people, who had just started to make their fortunes through piracy, all had a pirate-like air about them. Their upper echelons, in order to conceal their pirate nature, would naturally pursue some illusory things.

When the Ming Dynasty envoys told the Frankish royal family that peonies represented nobility and elegance in the Ming Dynasty, almost every member of the Frankish royal family bought a peony from a Ming Dynasty merchant ship and carefully cultivated it.

The price of the peonies they bought wasn't particularly expensive; converted to silver, it was about twenty taels per pot.

Although they are much more expensive than those in the Ming Dynasty, these peonies traveled across the ocean to reach Europe, so the price is quite reasonable.

However, things took a magical turn a century later. Under the encouragement of Ming Dynasty merchants, some of the Franco royal family members began to pick peonies and wear them on their heads. A large peony on the head of a princess or queen certainly looked elegant and noble.

To this end, these Ming Dynasty merchants and Francois were constantly researching how to keep the peonies on their heads fresh and unfading.

Once this trend started, the high-ranking officials of the Frankish Empire followed suit and bought peonies from merchants of the Ming Dynasty. The price of peonies skyrocketed from the original twenty taels per pot to one hundred taels per pot.

One hundred taels per pot was just the beginning, far from the end. Later, due to the scarcity of peonies from the Ming Dynasty, the price continued to skyrocket, and the craze for peonies began to spread from France to the whole of Europe.

The neighboring Kingdom of Cork, the Kingdom of France, and even the royal families of the Kingdom of England across the Channel all began to frantically pursue peonies from the Ming Dynasty. Under the propaganda of the Franks, the Ming Dynasty became a mysterious, wealthy, and powerful entity in the eyes of all Europeans.

In the Ming Dynasty, peonies represented nobility and luxury. This gave these European nobles, who had just amassed a fortune but lacked the refinement to keep up, an instant outlet for their spending.

As a result, peonies from the Ming Dynasty became increasingly scarce, with some rare varieties fetching prices as high as eight hundred taels of silver per plant.

At this point, the price of peonies in Europe reached its peak. For the next two months, the price of peonies remained high, bringing a steady stream of wealth from all of Europe to the Ming Dynasty.

Of course, these Europeans weren't fools; they watched their country's wealth flow to the Ming Dynasty and tried to seize it from the Ming fleet, but they all remained silent.

Only then did they understand why the Francois, as the most powerful country in Europe, still praised the Ming Dynasty so much; they must have already been defeated and subdued by the Ming Dynasty.

Looking at these memorials, Zhou Chu was both amused and exasperated. He had only mentioned the peony flower casually, but he never expected that these merchants of the Ming Dynasty would actually realize it.

It must be said that merchants who could sail to Europe not only had courage, but also a mind that ordinary people could not match.

However, Zhou Chu knew that the price of peonies would eventually plummet, but what did that have to do with Zhou Chu and the Ming Dynasty? The Ming Dynasty had made enough money from peonies in the past year, enough to plunder the wealth of European royal families.

Tulip prices peaked and then plummeted, and peony prices have been at their peak for two months now, so a price drop is probably not far off.

However, these were just interludes. If the Ming Dynasty wanted to continue making money from Europe, it certainly couldn't rely on such speculative methods. In the future, it would have to rely on normal commercial means.

After reading these memorials, Zhou Chu had the eunuchs who were waiting at the Zhou residence take the memorials back to the palace.

These memorials were originally shown to Zhou Chu by Jiajing so that he could quickly understand the situation in Japan and Europe.

"Teacher, you are finally back!"

Just as Zhou Chu was about to have dinner, he saw Hai Rui, Yang Shengzhai, and others arriving together.

Hai Rui and others knew that Zhou Chu had returned because they saw Hu Zongxian and others whom they hadn't seen for two years.

Nowadays, Hu Zongxian, Zhao Zhenji, Zhu Xianrong, and others are all tall and dark-skinned. After two years of training in the Xuanwu Army, their combat strength is no less than that of any Xuanwu Army soldier.

The men were masters of military strategy. Back in Tibet, Zhou Chu often divided his troops, sending them to lead the army to wipe out the local landlords and nobles.

The Tibetan lama soldiers were far more powerful than ordinary Ming troops. These men were steadfast in their faith and fearless in the face of death. If it weren't for the Xuanwu Army and Zhou Chu, other troops would probably have had a hard time getting out of Tibet.

"Have you eaten?"

Zhou Chu looked at Hai Rui and the others in their hurried manner and asked.

"Nope."

Upon hearing this, Hai Rui was taken aback at first, and then subconsciously replied.

"Then let's eat together first, we can talk about other things after we finish eating."

After saying this, Zhou Chu looked at Chunlan.

"Add a few more dishes."