Daming Town Haiwang

Chapter 1563 Are we really wrong?
In the study of the mansion of Xie Qian, the cabinet minister in the capital, Xie Qian was looking at a map of the world in a daze, and fell into a long thought.

Looking back on my life, when I was young, I became knowledgeable and talented, and I was tall and handsome. Later, at the age of twenty-six, I became the number one scholar in high school.

His official career was also smooth sailing. He started from writing in the Hanlin Academy, and became a concubine in just a few years. In the early years of Hongzhi, he entered Zhan Shifu as a young Zhan Shifu and served as a lecturer.

Only eight years later, he successfully entered the cabinet and became a cabinet minister that countless officials would never be able to match in their lifetime. When Hongzhi was in the eleventh year of the Ministry of War and Dongge University, the prince Shaobao.

It can be said to be smooth sailing and incomparably magnanimous.

But now, he felt that it was time for him to retire.

After several incidents in succession, he could already feel that Emperor Hongzhi was dissatisfied with him.

From the famine in the three northern provinces in the [-]th year of Hongzhi, to the tax reform, the introduction of commercial taxes, the establishment of tax offices, and then the emperor Hongzhi's return of military power, and the incident in Nanjing in the last year, the emperor Hongzhi wanted to reduce the number of Jiangnan scientific examination places. .

Xie Qian knew that Emperor Hongzhi's dissatisfaction with him had reached its limit.

As a cabinet minister, if you don't have the trust of the emperor, you will basically not be able to do it for long, and there is no way to continue to do many things.

He knew this very well, but looking at the resignation note in his hand, he was extremely reluctant to part with it.

He is still very young now, only in his sixties. Compared to the ministers in the court, he is very young. Liu Jian is already in his seventies, almost eighty.

As long as he keeps going, when Liu Jian retires, there is still a great hope that he can become the chief assistant of the cabinet and achieve the ultimate level of being a minister. It will be completely different if he retires at that time.

However, now it seems that the time has come to have to retire.

The emperor has expressed his dissatisfaction clearly enough.

"I didn't do anything wrong, but why do I seem to be doing a lot, a lot of mistakes."

Looking at the world map in front of him, Xie Qian couldn't help asking.

For a long time, what he believed in was to assist the king in governing the world. He had always advised the emperor to be close to the sages, stay away from courtiers, be diligent in learning, guard against ease, rule the world with benevolence and righteousness, lightly pay taxes, and conquer with virtue. all over the world.

At first, Emperor Hongzhi trusted him very much, and he started as a bachelor of servants. He knew that Emperor Hongzhi was generous and kind, and he was diligent and caring for the people.

But I don't know when, Emperor Hongzhi no longer believed in this set of things, but began to believe in the set of things proposed by Liu Jin.

Liu Jin proposed to rectify military affairs, expand externally, reform the tax system, levy business taxes, delve into ingenious techniques, set up factories and workshops, and also colonize overseas, bloody plunder and expansion abroad.

This is a thought and line that is completely contrary to the traditional Confucian way of governing the country.

This continuous external expansion, in the words of Confucianism, means that wars will lead to death, not only to kill a large number of their own people, but also to cause huge killings and bloodshed in the expansion area.

Especially Liu Jin's several foreign expansions as commander-in-chief, whether it was sweeping Nanyang or annexing the Western Regions, Liu Jin has always believed in the idea that power is the truth, and those who follow me prosper and those who oppose me perish.

In Nanyang, the Western Regions, especially the Hezhong area, bloody killings and plunders were carried out. I don’t know how many countries and tribes fell under the butcher knife of the Ming Dynasty. The land of death and silence, the land of thousands of miles, is desolate and uninhabited.

There are not many countries in the South Seas that were destroyed by Liu Jin, and even a small country like Malacca had to surrender to Ming Dynasty, signed an alliance under the city, and compensated several million taels of silver.

Siam, which used to have a good relationship with Ming Dynasty, was directly attacked by the capital, and finally bowed its head and surrendered, losing tens of millions of taels of silver.

From the perspective of traditional Confucianism, these are absolutely unacceptable.

Since ancient times, great and great countries have always conquered people with virtue and conquered the world. Only now did the four directions come to court, and all the countries in the four directions admired our Chinese civilization.

But Liu Jin went to war, used force to subdue people, swept all directions, and killed wantonly. How is this different from robbers and barbarians?
However, it was Liu Jin's series of external expansion and wars that not only did not drag down Daming, but brought huge wealth to Daming.

The war indemnity from the surrounding countries to Ming Dynasty alone has received tens of millions of taels of silver war indemnity every year. Japan, Malacca, Siam, Ottoman Empire, and England all honestly send war indemnity to Ming Dynasty every year. Come to Daming.

Such a huge wealth greatly eased the financial strain of the Ming Dynasty, and at the same time greatly strengthened the army of the Ming Dynasty, making the new military system successfully completed, and bursting out with great vitality and combat power.

In addition, the huge land acquired by external expansion provided the conditions for the immigrants of Ming Dynasty. The rich Southeast Asia, the fertile Liaodong, the vast Western Regions and the middle of the river, each of which has millions or tens of millions of immigrants migrated there. .

Nanyang became Daming's sugar warehouse, Liaodong became Daming's granary, and the Western Regions and Hezhong became Daming's meat warehouse and horse farm, so that Daming no longer had to worry about food and horses.

The Tartars in the north, who used to be covetous and held customs every year, have now become grassland people who can sing and dance, grazing cattle and sheep for the Ming people, and sending warm wool.

Obviously, it was a bloody and inhuman massacre to the outside world, but in turn, it nourished Daming and gave this huge empire that was already on the verge of collapse and the wind and rain a new lease of life.

There is also the reform of the tax system and the introduction of commercial taxation. In the traditional Confucian view, it is excessive taxation, which is a sign of national subjugation. As an emperor, he should lightly pay taxes and cultivate the people, and collect as little as possible and no taxation. .

However, Liu Jin, he not only wanted to collect taxes, but also set up a tax bureau, set up tax police, tried his best to collect taxes, and used force to collect taxes.

In the past, it was absolutely appropriate to extort and extort money, and this label could not be removed even if it died.

Xie Qian was strongly opposed to this matter. In his opinion, excessive taxation and extortion must have no good results. If one is not careful, there may be wars everywhere, and the country will be in turmoil.

But the fact is that this series of tax reforms not only did not make the Ming Dynasty turbulent and the country turbulent, but because of the huge increase in tax revenue from the treasury, the imperial court had money to carry out a series of operations.

It can support millions of immigrants, large-scale immigration to Liaodong, Western Regions, Hezhong, Nanyang and other places, which greatly eases the land and population contradictions within the Ming Dynasty.

The imperial court has money, so it can build water conservancy projects on a large scale and carry out large-scale infrastructure construction. A large number of measures such as reservoirs, river lifts, roads, dredging canals, and new ports have made it extremely convenient for exchanges between various places in Ming Dynasty, and the flow of goods has been smoother. The impact of drought and flood disasters has been greatly weakened.

The imperial court became rich, and it also greatly increased the salaries and benefits of officials. In the past, the salaries and benefits of officials in the Ming Dynasty could really starve to death, and they were not enough to support officials to have a decent life.

Now, after several times of substantial increases in salary and treatment, the salary and treatment of officials in the Ming Dynasty are quite good. Even small officials of the seventh rank can now receive several hundred taels of silver plus food, cloth, etc. every year. A lot of real things.

The substantial increase in salary has also made the officialdom of the Ming Dynasty more clean. There are still corrupt officials, but there are also many officials who have become more clean, because this kind of salary is enough to easily support their families and live a good life.

Studying KitKat Yin skills is a crooked way and a third-rate thing in the eyes of traditional Confucianism. The real way should be the way advocated by Confucianism. People must be diligent and diligent, instead of always thinking about lazy and slippery things.

But it was precisely these things. Under the leadership of Liu Jin, the new spinning machines and looms set off the textile revolution in Ming Dynasty, and countless textile factories and workshops sprung up like mushrooms after rain.

The efficiency of the new spinning machines and looms was dozens or hundreds of times that of the original ones, and they surpassed the original household textile machines in an instant, setting off the rapid development of capitalism.

The next steam engine, that is derived from a series of machines.

The spinning machines and looms driven by steam are faster and more efficient. The steam cultivating machines allow the people of Daming to easily reclaim hundreds or thousands of acres of land.

The steam train, accompanied by the billowing white smoke and the sound of the whistle, is like a giant dragon passing through the north and south of the Ming Dynasty, which greatly facilitates the travel of people and the circulation of goods, allowing the food in Liaodong and the meat in the Western Regions to continuously nourish Daming. .

The appearance of steam ships set off a revolution in maritime navigation. The originally distant Gold Island and Australia became closer. Dried fish, ginseng, gold, silver, Australian mutton, kangaroo, abalone, wool, etc. In addition, rice, sugar, fruits, and spices from Nanyang were continuously transported back to Daming.

Steam rice mills, flour mills, bicycles, etc., all kinds of machines have sprung up like mushrooms, greatly improving the productivity of Daming people, and creating wealth that surpasses any previous era, making Daming people became the richest man.

"Are we really wrong?"

Xie Qian looked at the world map. The territory of Ming Dynasty was extremely vast, and there were a large number of vassal states and colonies overseas. The Chinese descendants spread all over the world and ruled the world.

Today's Daming is far from the prosperity that can be measured. Compared with the so-called prosperity in history, it is insignificant compared with today's Daming. The key is that at this moment, Daming is still developing at a high speed, becoming richer and more prosperous prosperity.

(End of this chapter)