Daming Town Haiwang

Chapter 177

Emperor Hongzhi has been emperor for eleven years, and in this position, he naturally has a lot of feelings and gains.

Although he used civil servants heavily, the relationship between the monarch and his ministers was very good. Under his hard work, Daming also reversed the situation in Emperor Hongzhi's cheap father Ming Xianzong in one fell swoop.

But after being the emperor for many years, he was actually quite aggrieved.

My family of three saved food and clothing, but still received a lot of memorials every day asking Emperor Hongzhi to practice frugality, be diligent and thrifty, and not to be extravagant and wasteful.

Everyone wanted to point to Emperor Hongzhi's nose and say that Emperor Hongzhi ate too much and it was too good. He should cut down his expenses and be more frugal.

For more than ten years, it was hard to live frugally, and saved millions of taels of silver in internal money. The ministers of the whole court watched every day. It was the emperor, the pig, and it just so happened that Emperor Hongzhi was also surnamed Zhu.

The armaments are slack, the frontier army is struggling, and the combat effectiveness is low.

Emperor Hongzhi also wanted to reorganize the army and increase investment and expenditure in this area, but he was often subject to the six cabinet departments. In terms of military expenditures, these civil officials in the court could be reduced as much as possible, suppressed as much as possible, and kept as they were. Some are not bad, and it is simply impossible to reorganize the army.

Therefore, every time the little prince goes south to buckle the border, he can only defend passively. It is impossible for him to hunt the northern part of the country, chase the Yuanhu north, and bow down one by one the nomads in the north like Emperor Chengzu did back then.

From all aspects, he felt huge restrictions. Even if he wanted to make some changes, he was often powerless. What impressed him the most was that he had no money, and he was really too poor.

Now that I heard Zhu Houzhao's analysis of peeling cocoon and silk, I was deeply moved and couldn't help nodding.

Then he looked at Zhu Houzhao, and really didn't believe that he could analyze it, so he said, "Is this what Liu Jin told you?"

"No, do I need him to say it?"

"With my ingenuity, I can figure it out myself."

"It's easy to analyze this matter, but more or less it has something to do with Liu Jin."

Zhu Houzhao was not happy when he heard it, and he was not happy that what he had finally analyzed should be blamed on Lao Liu.

"Since you analyzed it, then tell me what to do?"

Emperor Hongzhi nodded, also half-believing.

"This is easy to handle. I have three plans. Do you want to listen to that first?"

Zhu Houzhao rolled his small eyes, thought for a while and said.

"Oh, there are three tricks, you should come and listen to them."

Emperor Hongzhi immediately became interested and said with great interest.

"The bad idea is very simple. We have to find out who sold the grain and whose hands the grain ended up in. It shouldn't be difficult. Then we punish these people with thunderous means, take back the grain, and use the grain to survive the famine It's not difficult, but this strategy can only punish some grain merchants and officials, but it doesn't hurt the real people behind it, and they will have similar schemes against us in the future."

"It's the right strategy. We can use our plan first, lure the snake out of the hole, and find out how many of their people are in the court. When the time comes, we will not only wipe out the profiteers, but also wipe out the moths in the court."

"The best strategy is to take this matter as an opportunity. We not only want to let these profiteers go bankrupt, let these moths above the court and the spokespersons of profiteers be wiped out, but also completely get rid of their control over us in terms of money. The right to speak about money, when you want to do something in the future, you don’t have to be constrained by money anymore.”

Zhu Houzhao spoke out the three strategies he was thinking in one breath.

"Your best policy is good, but how should you implement it?"

"The food is in their hands now. If we don't find out and force the food back, how will we survive the current famine?"

Emperor Hongzhi listened carefully and thought about it carefully. After thinking for a while, he asked, "Is it really necessary to use the money I saved so hard to buy their food?"

"Father, you have reached the key point."

Zhu Houzhao nodded, and then said: "The reason why these people dare to formulate this conspiracy is because they have food in their hands, which is the biggest bargaining chip in the current famine period. If the food problem is not solved, we will still be led by them. of."

"But I already have a solution, father, you may not know that in Tianjin, many victims of the disaster have already vomited from eating meat."

"Eating meat until you vomit?"

When Emperor Hongzhi heard it, he was immediately dumbfounded. There was no such food, and he even said that he vomited after eating meat. How could this be possible.

"Father, what they eat is sea fish."

Zhu Houzhao laughed happily when he saw Emperor Hongzhi's expression.

"Sea fish?"

Emperor Hongzhi was even more confused.

"Yes, there are too many fish in the ocean. The fleet going to America is training at sea. Lao Liu thinks that they are going to sea anyway, and they can catch fish along the way."

"That's why trawling is used. This boat goes out to circle the sea. It takes a day and a night to go back and forth. It can bring back tens of thousands of catties of sea fish. There are several boats in Tianjin that go out to fish every day. The fish brought back could not be eaten up, so a large number of victims were recruited to work.”

"If there is no food, give them fish meat, and use fish meat as food. They eat meat until they vomit."

Zhu Houzhao smiled and told what happened in Tianjin.

"How many catties of fish per boat? One day and one night round trip?"

Emperor Hongzhi was stunned when he heard it. Meat is very rare in this era. He did not expect that the harvest from fishing would be so great, it is unbelievable.

"There are infinite treasures in the ocean. The fishery resources are extremely rich. The variety of sea fish is hundreds to thousands of times that of river fish. As long as there is a boat to fish, you can get a lot of fish casually. And this sea fish High nutritional value, definitely the best meat."

"We just need to send more boats to go fishing. The sea fish harvested every day is enough to feed tens of thousands of people. Moreover, the three provinces affected by the disaster this time are Beizhili, Shandong, and Shanxi. Both Beizhili and Shandong are close to the sea. , Going out to sea and fishing is very convenient.”

After saying this, Zhu Houzhao also said with emotion: "I have seen those hungry people eat up all the bark, and the belly swollen from eating Guanyin soil is like a pregnancy in October."

"There is no food on land, but there is so much food in the ocean that we can't finish it. Why don't we open the sea and ban fishing?"

Hearing Zhu Houzhao's words, Emperor Hongzhi fell into deep thought. Regarding the sea ban, it was decided by his ancestor Zhu Yuanzhang, but he, the emperor who guarded the city, never thought about it.

Unexpectedly, the harvest of this ocean fishing is so great. A boat can bring back tens of thousands of catties of sea fish after going out for two days. These tens of thousands of catties of sea fish are tens of thousands of catties of meat. How many sea fish can be harvested and how many people can be supported by Daming's sea area stretching thousands of miles?

Thinking of this, Emperor Hongzhi was also shaken in his heart. This is to explain the benefits of opening the sea with practical things, that is, you can catch fish and get a lot of food, or meat, which can feed more people.

But when he thought that this was decided by his ancestors, when he thought about the many things that happened during Zheng He's voyages to the West during the Chengzu period, and when he thought about the fierce opposition from his courtiers, he frowned again. The emperor opened it as soon as he said it.

"Tianjin Shipyard is building a special fishing boat, and it will be launched soon. By then, the amount of fish will be larger, enough to meet the needs of the victims in the Beijing-Tianjin area."

"In addition, Liu Jin has sent a fleet to North Korea for training on short-distance routes. By the way, he is also doing business with North Korea, selling glass and mirrors from the glass factory, and then buying food from North Korea. , one trip, and it only takes less than half a month."

"Now the first batch of five ships should almost arrive in North Korea, and they will be able to return in five or six days. At that time, they will be able to buy a lot of food and come back."

"After the food problem is solved, the biggest bargaining chip in their hands will be useless. We will adjust the food from the south and use the three-pronged approach. The price of this food can be suppressed quickly, and these profiteers will go bankrupt. The most important thing is The only thing we need is to keep our own financial resources and master greater resources, so as to get rid of their control over us step by step."

"As the saying goes, don't panic if you have money in your hands. As long as we have the royal family with their own sources and channels of money, and have enough resources, they will never want to control us financially."

Seeing Emperor Hongzhi pondering, Zhu Houzhao continued to finish his best plan. The core point is actually to solve the problem of food. Only with enough food in hand can he have enough confidence to fight back.

　I hope you all take it easy~~
　　
　
(End of this chapter)