Xinshun 1730

Chapter 718 What is the purpose of going to Nanyang?

The primary purpose of colonialism is to obtain high profits.This is the same at home and abroad.

The imperial court is not a company, but Nanyang is not under the control of the six governments, at least not for the time being, so going to Nanyang has to consider making money.If it does not make money, will the imperial court go to Nanyang for longer-term interests and to solve the contradiction of more people and less land?

This is a question worth considering. At least some people in the DPRK are not keen on it, and think that it is enough to guard the existing one-third of an acre of land.It is okay for people to go to Nanyang to seek a living, but it is somewhat difficult for the imperial court to pay for Nanyang, encourage people to immigrate, and support people to emigrate.

The ministers are all smart people. This is not a question of whether they are smart or not, but a question of three views.

Kang Buxio always said that Liu Yu was not from Dashun, and the reason was that Liu Yu's way of thinking was not consistent with that at this time.

Just like the so-called Ming Dynasty’s four words “the country is the most righteous”, according to Liu Yu’s understanding, it is due to class background, Zhu Yuanzhang’s poor background, the bottom-up uprising, and the justice of expelling the Tartars; The reason for this "obtaining the country is the most righteous" is that "the minister who kills the emperor is murder, the minister who rebels against the emperor is rebellion, and the minister who rebels takes the throne is usurpation". Zhu Yuanzhang did not touch these three things, and he was never a minister of Meng Yuan So the country is the most righteous.And the rest...the Sima family, the Yang family, the Li family, the Zhao family, and the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms in troubled times, "kill, rebel, and usurp", these three words must be stained with one.

It is also recognized that "the country is the most upright", but the core and logic of the recognition are completely different.This is the reason why Liu Yu looks like a Dashun person from the outside, but he is not a Dashun person at all.

The same is true for the Nanyang issue.

Judging from Liu Yu's three views, going to Nanyang is really the right decision. Is this still worth discussing and considering?Even if you don't make money for the time being, going to Nanyang is definitely a great thing that will benefit thousands of years.

From the point of view of the DPRK, it is different.

Including the emperor, although he supported Nanyang, it was not so much persuaded by "long-term benefits that can solve the contradiction of more people and less land", but because "it is not a problem to get three or five taxes in Henan every year."

Now that this difficult problem is thrown to Niu Er and others, they are quite influenced by Liu Yu's subtle influence, so they know more about the difficulty.

To talk about the attitude of the court, we must first consider the attitude of the emperor.

After all, Niu Er and the others are not high-ranking officials of Dashun, close friends, and cannot consider the emperor's thoughts from a larger overall perspective.

Liu Yu understood, but he didn't want to tell them.

The emperor's logic seems to be no problem.

The emperor's logic, taking history as a mirror, and previous dynasties as a mirror, has a basic starting point that cannot be wrong: that is, the celestial dynasty is so vast and vast, as long as there are no internal problems, it cannot be killed immediately outside.The one who can change the dynasties can only be within the celestial dynasty, and it is not yet the turn of external forces.

From this starting point, there is actually another meaning of traveling to Nanyang.

That is to change the waste water into the sea.

There are Westerners in Nanyang, Dashun cannot gain absolute control over the sea, and the fortress base of the Westerners is very close to Dashun, so Dashun has no way to abolish the water and change the sea.

It has never been a problem whether the waste water can be converted into the sea, whether it can be transported by sea.

If the navy has not proved that it can "hold the entire Nanyang Sea"; if it has not completed the voyage to the Nanyang Sea and completely expelled the Western forces...then, it is empty talk to change the sea from waste to water.

Today the canal is abolished, and tomorrow the Westerners' fleet will directly block the sea route from the Yangtze River basin to the capital. If there is a rebellion in the south, if the Westerners support it a little bit and follow Liu Yu's example in Tosa, Japan, they will fear chaos in the world.

It is the following Nanyang, which means that the biggest worry about abolishing the water and transforming the sea has also dissipated.

Then came the question of money.

Whether it is Nanyang or trade, it is for making money.

Earning money is for spending, especially for the emperor, the emperor does not need to be a miser, the money he gets is for spending.

From the emperor's point of view, if the trip to Southeast Asia is successful, if the monopoly of the spice trade is successful, if the monopoly of the East-West trade is successful, if the VOC's commercial market in Asia is fully taken over... Where should the extra money be spent first?

Niu Er and others are not qualified to consider these issues, and it is impossible to consider them.

But the problem is very real.

At that time, the Jiedu envoy of Jiangsu proposed to abolish the water and change the sea, but Liu Yu was sullen and did not speak or express his position.The emperor also has a kind attitude.

But in fact, the emperor recognized the consideration of Jiangsu Jiedushi.

Canals and Huanghuai have become cancers of the empire since the Song Dynasty replaced soldiers with water.Huanghuai, once the most affluent area, has now become a large poverty-stricken area.Many fantasy stories that happened in the late Ming Dynasty, such as power at night, such as tenants who have to avoid taboos for their masters, etc., all happened in the Huanghuai area.

Moreover, the world of Dashun was taken from Daming, where did Daming start?In this regard, no dynasty cares more about the Huanghuai region than Dashun.

It can't sweep the world here, but it is easy to "be the king's pioneer". It is located in the heart of the empire, and when it becomes chaotic, it will span several provinces and separate the north and south.

Although due to the division and obstruction of the canal, Huaihe River, and Yellow River, even if an uprising breaks out here, it is easy to be trapped to death.

But if the erosion continues here and consumes the military and financial resources of the empire, it will be easy to become a king, and a force may emerge in other more suitable places.

From the emperor's point of view, the whole logic is as follows:

To abolish the water and change the sea, we must first ensure the stability of Nanyang. There is no strong naval force that can threaten shipping and ensure the food in the capital.

To ensure the stability of Nanyang, a fleet is needed.So for this fleet, money has to be invested.

To abolish the water and change the sea, and at the same time resettle the people in the Huanghuai Canal area, this requires money.

The original taxation and support are basically balanced and stretched.New financial resources are needed to ensure the cost of converting the waste water into the sea.

Where will the new money come from?
Nanyang.

As for resolving the contradiction between more people and less land, the emperor also had his own ideas.

The people will go to Nanyang if they can't survive.As long as the imperial court has a certain influence in Nanyang, and the policy allows people to go to Nanyang, but it is not under the same jurisdiction as the inland provinces, can't this be solved?

In addition to wars, official expenses, military expenses, etc., the taxes collected by the imperial court every year are used for disaster relief and relief.

Because of the process of Dashun winning the world, Dashun is very concerned about relief and disaster relief.After all, how did Emperor Taizu start his family, and he is afraid that future generations will learn and be good.As the saying goes, if you Li Zicheng can do it, I can't do it?

But the emperor felt that since the imperial court had a navy, the navy was such a monster that swallowed gold, and ordinary separatist forces were absolutely incapable of doing so.Even if someone is making trouble in Nanyang, is it possible that they can cross the sea with one reed and go to the capital to seize the bird seat?
If it is like the inland provinces, how much money will be thrown into it a year for land reform, disaster relief, and assimilation of counties and counties?
But if we follow the thinking of Westerners and make Nanyang a colony, wouldn't this save money?The common people can't live anymore, and they are willing to go to Nanyang, but the imperial court will not spend a lot of money like resettling immigrants from the northeast and northwest.

In this way, not only save money, but also make money.

If money can be obtained, the problem of the Huanghuai River and the canal can be solved; if money can be obtained, the railway track plan of the Academy of Sciences will be successful in the future, passing through the Songliao Watershed and the Hexi Corridor... The emperor also felt that Dashun might really want to catch up with Shang Zhou, come up with 800 years of foundation miles.

At the beginning, Liu Yu frightened the emperor, saying that if Nanyang had a strong navy, cut off water transportation, and supported the rebellion, I thought Dashun would be finished.

Now, the navy has it, and Nanyang has it.There may be a regime in the Northeast and Northwest that can aspire to the Central Plains, but Nanyang is afraid of it?Is it possible to cross the sea with one reed?
This caused the emperor to treat Nanyang completely differently from the Northeast, Northwest and other homelands and newly returned lands, as well as the Han provinces that were the basic internal territory of the Celestial Dynasty.

On the issue of going to Nanyang, Liu Yu and the emperor were fellow travelers.Don't care what the purpose is, don't care what the core is, in short, the process of Nanyang is consistent.

But after going to Nanyang, the two actually had quite a big difference.

And this will also directly affect Nanyang's future policies.

The second-class cows' ass determines their heads. They think that the Dutch's forced planting system and the policy of wooing gentry and village chiefs are really good.

From the perspective of the emperor's attitude towards Nanyang, he was indeed right and couldn't be more right.

Ten acres of land, six acres belong to oneself, and four acres must be forced to grow cash crops for land tax.Selling coffee for 10 silver coins in Europe, forced planting for land tax, or monopoly acquisition, may only cost 1 silver coin.

Ten times the profit, and it will pay off within a few years.

Coffee trees should grow in high altitude, volcanic or limestone or granite soil, cloudy or shade trees at high temperature, large temperature difference between day and night, obvious dry and wet seasons, and fertile soil.

Ceylon or Java, with mountains, high altitudes, and volcanoes, is the most suitable place to grow this thing.And Java coffee, because it is very suitable, the quality is really good.

Generally speaking, it takes only four years for coffee to grow from planting to harvesting.Moreover, the price of coffee in Europe is very high now, and the profit is higher than that of spices that have ebbed due to the theory of "four fluids in the human body".

As a crop for extracting indigo dye, blue leaf vine is also very suitable for planting in Java.Along with the development of the cotton textile industry, the UK began to gradually relax cotton control, and the Manchester Act began to break down the barriers to banning cotton, etc., the price of indigo was also rising steadily.

At the beginning, the Dutch wanted to slaughter all the Chinese in sugar factories and sugarcane plantations, and the route envisioned for industrial transformation was to engage in coffee and indigo.

That's why in the Bandung area, the Burianan system, that is, the forced planting system, was implemented on a trial basis.

Before the Chinese uprising, the forced planting system in the Burianan area once made the company's board of directors see hope and profit growth.

From the point of view of conscience, is this policy correct?It's so wrong, it's completely a variant of serfdom.

From a long-term perspective, is this policy correct?It is also outrageously wrong. If a large-scale uprising does not break out within 30 years of promotion, then hell will happen.

But from a short-term, profit point of view, is this policy right?It couldn't be more right.The purchase price is almost zero cost, and the local village head acts as a second devil to suppress and force the people in the village community.

Four years for coffee, three years for blue leaf vine, five years at most, as long as it can be sold to Europe and the smuggling market of dyed cotton cloth is opened, Java will contribute at least three to five million taels of silver a year.

Moreover, it works in the short term.

For officials, this is of course a merit.A possible uprising in 30 or 30 years is none of my business?Which bastard can be the governor of Java for 30 or 30 years?As the governor for [-] years, is the imperial court preparing to become the king of Java?Or are you going to make a Javanese toast?Obviously, there is no need to think about what will happen in [-] or [-] years.

(End of this chapter)