Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 2377: The Wind Within (IV)
The economic base determines the superstructure, which is a universal truth. Gao Youshi's rhetoric can indeed avoid the accusation of "collaborating with the barbarians", but in the final analysis, the final solution to the problem still depends on whether there is enough money and grain.

This year's disaster in the north is almost foreseeable. This means that the special disaster relief funds that Gao Youshi reserved before accompanying the emperor to Nanjing at the beginning of the year cannot be used for other purposes, and may even be insufficient. It is best to supplement them while it is still late autumn and early winter, so as to avoid being helpless and many people becoming homeless and refugees.

Under such circumstances, there are many hidden dangers in the Ming Dynasty. If we accept the full submission of the Tumed, Nenkorchin, and the Jurchen tribes in the northeast, we will be carrying a huge burden on our backs... We must not let ourselves be crushed to death by then.

"Before calling you all to the meeting today, this cabinet sent people to the major trading companies in Beijing to conduct some research. Although I can't say it is very accurate, I have roughly figured out the inventory situation of some bulk materials in the capital and even in Northern Zhili, Shanxi, and Liaodong."

As soon as Gao Youshi opened his mouth, he made a shocking statement. However, the officials thought it was not surprising. After all, the largest commercial hegemon in the north was the Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance led by Jinghua. Gao Yuanfu's so-called "understanding" might only require an internal check of the accounts and an inventory count to get a rough idea.

"Our ministry has already sent someone to summarize the specific data in a proposal, which you can circulate among each other." Gao Youshi said as he took out a proposal from his sleeve and handed it to Zhao Zhigao, the Grand Secretary of Jianji Palace.

The Grand Secretary of Jianji Hall was already the second-in-command, but Zhao Zhigao was old and sick, and he was also scared by Gao Youshi's fierce political tactics last time. As a result, he did not even accompany the emperor on his southern tour this year, but stayed in the capital, nominally "sitting in the cabinet", but in fact he did not dare to show up and deliberately gave the limelight completely to Gao Youshi.

His behavior now was consistent with his usual style over the past year. When he saw Gao Youshi handing over the proposal, Zhao Zhigao, who had been drowsy, sat up straight, bowed slightly, took it with both hands, and then carefully opened it to read. However, he read it very quickly - all the officials thought he was just pretending - and immediately handed it to Shen Yikuan, the Grand Secretary of Wenhua Palace.

In addition to the nine ministers, there were four assistant ministers at the meeting. It was obvious that Gao Youshi would not wait for everyone to finish reading before continuing to speak, so he started again at this moment, continuing from the previous text: "In general, in addition to rice, noodles and other food, other materials in the three places are still relatively abundant. Even if there is still a shortage of some materials, this cabinet can solve it by temporarily increasing production or allocating imports from various provinces.

For example, when a white disaster strikes, freezing to death of people and animals is the biggest crisis. This means that keeping warm is the top priority. Keeping warm can be divided into three aspects: clothing, shelter, and heating.

As for clothing, the three places have a lot of coarse cloth and cotton. According to calculations, it can roughly sew 1.2 million cotton jackets for adult men and women, or 900,000 cotton jackets for adult men and women plus 600,000 cotton jackets for children. Based on the current population of the Tumed, Khorchin, and Shengnuzhen tribes, it should be enough.

Of course, you may ask, what about the Han people in Liaodong? This is also something that the cabinet has considered. On the one hand, we can temporarily allocate a portion of the Liaodong military uniforms, about 200,000 sets; on the other hand, there is still time to transfer cloth and cotton from the southern provinces to make them urgently. "

After he said that, Wuying Palace Grand Secretary Zhou Yong became a little anxious, and stood up and asked hurriedly: "Prime Minister, if we use the cotton-padded jackets in the Liaodong Army's inventory, if some of them are worn out in the future, it will be easy to cause trouble afterwards..."

"Lord Zhou, you are worrying too much," Gao Youshi waved his hand and said, "After these 200,000 sets of cotton-padded jackets are allocated, they will be directly written off from the Liaodong Army's inventory. Next year, the cabinet will allocate them another batch of new cotton-padded jackets to replenish their inventory."

Zhou Yong sat back down immediately after hearing this. His work in the cabinet was relatively simple, and he was only responsible for the Ministry of War. So since Yuan Fu, who was also the Minister of Revenue, said that these more than 200,000 cotton-padded jackets could be directly sold, and new cotton-padded jackets would be replenished next year, what else could he say?

To be honest, when this news reached Liaodong, the generals and officers at all levels of the Liaodong Army might have celebrated - this was a good opportunity to settle the accounts!
Although financial audits have become increasingly strict in recent years since the establishment of the large-scale department system, anyone who has really worked at the grassroots level knows that it is inevitable that things like inventory clothing will suffer some damage. It may be damaged by mice or damp... These are all reasonable things.

Since this is reasonable, if the specific figures are slightly higher, even the Audit Office will not be able to easily conclude that you have done something fishy, ​​right?
Zhou Yong was originally worried that Gao Youshi's plan to use cotton-padded jackets from military uniforms would cause dissatisfaction among the Liaodong Army, but Gao Youshi was too familiar with the military and knew the ins and outs of this. Therefore, his words "settling the account" and "filling it up next year" put Zhou Yong at ease - the Liaodong Army would definitely not be dissatisfied, but would rather want to build a shrine for Gao Youshi.

As for how much more money the court will spend on this next year, Zhou Yong will not ask. This matter will be handled by Yuan Fu. After all, he is the Minister of Revenue.

However, Song Yingchang, the Minister of War, could not help but ask one more question: "Prince, although the Liaodong Army still has sufficient inventory, if these 200,000 cotton-padded jackets are taken away, if the clothes of the registered soldiers are damaged, I am afraid it will not be easy to deal with."

That is, it is not surprising that military uniforms are worn out. After all, even if there is no war, there will be some wear and tear during training, guard duty, scouting, and other tasks. Gao Youshi directly cleared out the Liaodong Army's cotton-padded jacket inventory, which means there is no redundancy at all, and this must be resolved.

Who knew that Gao Youshi would not be able to speak this time. He said with a stern face, "Since it is not wartime, how can it be easily damaged? It can be repaired, how can it be replaced at will?"

Song Yingchang was frustrated and did not dare to confront Gao Youshi. He was about to back down when Gao Youshi said, "Although it is difficult to replace clothes this year, let alone replenish them, we can give the Liaodong Army some compensation in terms of heating."

Song Yingchang was slightly startled and asked, "I wonder what arrangements the Prime Minister would like to make?"

Gao Youshi said: "This year, we will increase the allocation of 10% of honeycomb coal to the Liaodong Army. As for how Li Rusong plans to distribute it, that is his business. This cabinet will not be involved."

Ever since Gao Youshi invented honeycomb coal, this thing has become the most important heating material in the north over the past 30 years, and the coal mining industry has also achieved great development.

Because there are many mountains and forests in Liaodong, in the early years, the government offices and wealthy families often used charcoal for heating, while the common people would cut down trees in advance and dry them in the shade, and then burn firewood directly in the winter. Now it is different. Burning honeycomb coal has become the mainstream, and charcoal and firewood are used as supplements. This is more obvious the closer to important coal producing areas and the more developed water transportation areas are.

Of course, Liaodong's water transport will become "ice transport" in winter because the rivers will freeze. Although it is better than ordinary land transport, the transport capacity is still much worse than when it is not frozen, and the freight will also increase. Therefore, everyone has the habit of hoarding coal for winter in advance. Gao Youshi dared to say this, obviously Jinghua's coal mine in Liaodong produced enough, so Song Yingchang thought about it and felt that with such a supplement, there would be no trouble, so he bowed and withdrew.

Since heating was already mentioned, Gao Youshi simply moved the third point forward to the second point. He said, "This cabinet has checked and found that the major coal mines in Shuntian, Northern Zhili, Shanxi, and Liaodong have sufficient stocks. Therefore, as long as the court orders the transfer, not only can the government offices and military camps in various places increase the supply, but it can even be provided to the people."

When Yu Shenxing heard this, he immediately became excited and praised: "The court allocated honeycomb coal to the people to keep warm. This is truly a good policy unprecedented in history..."

"Wait a minute!" Gao Youshi hurriedly stopped him, his eyes wide open, and said, "Mr. Gushan, please don't try to stop me with words. I didn't say that these honeycomb coals were distributed to the public for free."

He quickly explained: "First of all, although Jinghua and other large and small coal mines have a lot of coal reserves, they are all legal assets. The court cannot ask them to contribute for free with just one word. The court has to spend money to buy it. At most, Jinghua can lower the price, but it is impossible for it to be free. Otherwise, if so many mining areas in Jinghua cannot pay salaries, tens of thousands of miners will also need to eat. At that time... it will not be a joke."

Yu Shenxing had the intention to make Gao Youshi "bleed", but it was not malicious, he just felt that Gao Youshi didn't need the money. However, Gao Youshi was not so selfless. He could help the court in his own way, but he would not "ruin his family for the country" and waste money - unless there was a crisis of national extinction.

Yu Shenxing laughed dryly and said, "So it seems that it is the imperial court that has implicated Jinghua."

Gao Youshi always felt that his words were somewhat of a squeeze on him, but what could he do? He was the grandmaster of his provincial examination, and he couldn't make a fuss. So he could only pretend not to hear and continued, "There are still some troubles here. Although the court can provide Han people with coal for this winter at a low price, with loans, or even on credit, we will have to go door to door to collect it according to the account books next year.

However, after the Tumed, Khorchin, and Shengnuzhen tribes submitted, it was difficult to count their accounts for a while, so the only way to distribute supplies was according to the number of people in each tribe. Not to mention whether they were able and willing to distribute fairly to avoid freezing to death of people and animals, even if they could do it well, there would still be the problem of collecting the debts next year. "

Gao Youshi frowned and said, "Tumed and Nenkorqin are easier to deal with. As long as we can help them survive the white disaster this year, they can use horses, cattle and sheep to offset the debt next year. If that doesn't work, we can delay the repayment time, the year after next, or the year after that. It's not impossible to negotiate.

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But what about the Jurchens? They only know how to fish and hunt, and the Ming Dynasty doesn't have the habit of flying eagles and running dogs. No matter how good the Saker Falcon is, it's useless if not many people want to buy it. So they can at most use some furs and pearls to offset it... This cabinet has roughly estimated that these things alone may not be able to reach the output value."

This was indeed a problem, and the officials discussed it for a while, but there was no good solution. Shen Yiguan did propose an idea, saying that he heard that the male offspring of Zhen women were quite brave, so why not just let them sell themselves into the interior and go to the homes of the rich and powerful to guard the houses.

Gao Youshi rolled his eyes when he heard this, thinking, "Are you deliberately giving me bad ideas to disgust me?" The Jurchen tribes have just submitted to the imperial court, and I am going to take away their males and disperse them among the Han people, who have a population of one trillion. What do you think the leaders of the tribes will think? Do you think I invited them here first, and then forced them to rebel in front of me?
During the discussion, Gao Youshi's classmate, Minister of Works Xiao Liangyou, suddenly proposed an idea and said, "Rixin, I have thought of something that may be worth your consideration."

Gao Fusi hurriedly said, "Brother Hanchong, please tell me quickly."

Xiao Liang said: "Because my mother is weak, I went to the pharmacy a few days ago to buy some ginseng. I suddenly found that this year's ginseng is 40% more expensive than in previous years. After asking, I found out that it was because the Jurchen tribes moved to Korea, and the ginseng production decreased greatly, so the price increased.

The owner of the drugstore kindly advised me to buy a few more ginsengs because he estimated that once the ginseng stocks in drugstores across the country were used up and Liaodong’s production could not be increased, the price would continue to increase.”

Gao Fusi suddenly slapped the armrest: "Oh, I forgot about this!"

He was quite annoyed, because it was he who had strongly advocated the relocation of the Jurchens, but at that time it was mainly considered from the perspective of geopolitics and military security: by moving the Jurchens to Korea, Liaodong could be fully sinicized, and by then there would be the Yalu River. Even if the situation got so bad that the Jurchens took over the entire Korea, it would be almost impossible for them to fight back to Liaodong.

However, he forgot another thing. Historically, Nurhaci rose to power mainly by accumulating capital through ginseng trade on the economic level. Now Nurhaci was kicked to the southern part of Korea. It is true that the military threat has been basically eliminated, but there are not enough people to dig ginseng in the Jianzhou Jurchen area he vacated!

However, Gao Youshi also knew that Xiao Liang's mention of this matter was definitely not a suggestion for him to arrange for Han people to dig ginseng - although the Han people were very hardworking, digging ginseng was obviously not their expertise.

The level of development in Liaodong at that time was very low. Once you left the Han city, there was basically no big difference from the primitive society. The mountains were full of jackals, tigers, leopards, wild boars, bears, and none of them were easy to deal with.

If you insist that Han hunters can also go to such places, that's true, but how many Han hunters are there? Can they compare to the number of hunters of the Jurchens? What a joke, almost all Jurchens, whether raw or cooked, can be called hunters... If you don't believe me, just look at Menggu Zhezhe's archery skills.

You know, Menggu Zhezhe was born in the top Jurchen family, a princess of the Yehe tribe. She didn't really need to go hunting to make a living, her archery skills were at that level, if it was an ordinary Jurchen hunter who made a living by "craft", it would be unthinkable.

Gao Youshi immediately made the decision: "Thank you, Brother Hanchong! In this case, this cabinet will send someone to contact the Shengnuzhen and ask them to exchange ginseng for the needed materials. This year's time is too tight, so it doesn't matter if they can't get enough. The court will allow them to buy on credit and allow them to slowly make up for it in a few years!"
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PS: I received another sad news today. My eldest brother-in-law had a cerebral infarction and was admitted to the ICU. The hospital said that he would survive for the next three days. He would most likely be in a vegetative state in the future. If he couldn't survive, he would be gone. Alas, my uncle passed away two months ago due to a brain tumor, and now my brother-in-law is here again... Sometimes I think about it, people are so fragile.