prosperous age

In ancient China, there was generally no such thing as arms trade, as evidenced by the fact that the Ming Dynasty controlled the flow of iron into Mongolia.

Under normal circumstances, there are clear regulations on how many iron pots are sold to the northern grasslands each year through the border trade.

The reason for restricting iron pots is that iron pots are made of iron, and naturally they could also be used to forge weapons.

Not only were weapons exports restricted, but iron materials were also strictly controlled, which shows how strict the Ming Dynasty's arms control was.

Now, Grand Secretary Wei actually plans to sell large quantities of firearms to Europe. Putting aside whether it can succeed, this idea is extremely dangerous in the eyes of Zhang Juzheng and the other two.

“Good loan, this matter is of great importance. According to you, you are preparing to sell it to the barbarians in large quantities. Putting aside whether it conforms to the way of the ancient sages, the court may be able to make money, but this money is stained with blood. This is unacceptable.”

Zhang Juzheng disregarded the rules and the requirement to consult Zhang Siwei and Shen Shixing first, and directly expressed his own attitude.

Following Zhang Juzheng's statement, Zhang Siwei immediately followed suit, listing the trade relations between the court and Mongolia over the years, with ironware being the most important controlled commodity.

Well, his family is from Shanxi, so he has a deep understanding of the strict prohibition against trading ironware with Mongolia by the imperial court. Many Shanxi merchants thought about secretly selling iron pots to the grasslands, which could yield dozens of times the profit.

However, because of the imperial court's ban, the lucrative business could not be carried out, but the military leaders in the border towns secretly made a fortune by smuggling out countless goods.

"Europe is far away from us, so what's wrong with selling it?"

Moreover, iron cannons are not like bronze cannons. After firing too many shots, the cannon walls would wear down and have to be scrapped, otherwise there would be a risk of the barrel exploding.

Bronze cannons last longer, but they're too expensive and probably won't sell well.

Actually, I think this is something we can prepare for and sell them over there. After they finish the war, those cannons will be pretty much scrapped anyway.

Wei Guangde said dismissively, "Furthermore, gentlemen, there is no need to be so resolute in opposing this now. After all, things shouldn't happen so quickly unless the Westerners and the Portuguese go to war, thus triggering a war among the European countries."

Otherwise, based on the current situation, war is unlikely to break out so quickly; it might take ten or twenty years.

When that time comes, the current cabinet ministers will discuss and decide.

I'm just saying that we need to make some preparations for this now, after all, we need to keep a close eye on the development of firearms in Europe and not fall too far behind.

Otherwise, if a European war were to break out, and our Ming Dynasty's firearms were lagging behind, the other side might not be willing to spend money to buy them.

I'm bringing this up now simply to prepare for the worst.

Even if we don't sell, we can't be complacent and stagnant.

"In my opinion, Grand Secretary Wei is indeed farsighted. Regardless of whether this deal can be done in the end, the Ministry of Works really needs to work hard on firearms casting. Even if it's just to prepare sharp firearms for the government army, it's worth it."

Furthermore, the dynasty could even categorize weapons, selling substandard firearms to subservient vassal states.

Shen Shixing sided with Wei Guangde, not only supporting him but also suggesting that foreign military sales could begin with vassal states.

"If the firearms are of poor quality, they can simply be melted down and recast. Why sell them to the vassal states?"

This time it was Zhang Siwei who spoke, but this was the usual practice in the Ming Dynasty.

"The imperial court has sold weapons to vassal states before, including a small number of firearms."

Shen Shixing immediately added.

In reality, the only country from which the Ming Dynasty sold weapons was Korea.

Korea lacked iron ore and smelting technology, and its casting technology was also inadequate, so it often purchased weapons from the Ming Dynasty.

Incidentally, they also acquired some muskets and cannons, many of which were deployed near Busan to deter the Japanese.

However, the Ming Dynasty has now basically phased out these firearms, and some of them have been sold at high prices to Koreans and Ryukyuans by its subordinates.

Of course, such behavior constitutes smuggling.

In addition, a small number of muskets were smuggled out.

The Imperial Guards discovered them, but because the number was small, they did not take any action.

Those who dare to do this naturally have something to rely on. Putting aside the fact that they need these channels to send spies overseas, it's not appropriate for them to break ties at this time.

Through the briefings from the Embroidered Uniform Guard, several cabinet ministers learned of some of these matters.

Without sufficient intelligence, decisions, especially those involving diplomatic affairs, are likely to go awry.

This explains why leaders have endless documents to read all day long. In reality, many of these documents don't require them to make any decisions; it's simply a matter of transmitting information and then writing "read" to indicate that they understand.

Zhang Juzheng had also calmed down by this time.

Indeed, as Wei Guangde said, it was still just a rumor. He was merely informing the cabinet that the Ministry of Works might increase its investment in this area.

Weapon development has never been simple throughout history; it often requires repeated manufacturing processes, with the best of the best being selected before the final design is finalized.

Now that weapons are transitioning from cold weapons to firearms, the development costs are also much lower.

For cold weapons, you can first draw a design, then manufacture a sample, and then modify it directly. You don't need to manufacture too many to finalize the design.

But firearms are different. They need to be tested after they are made, which consumes a lot of gunpowder. If they don't work, they have to be recast.

Sometimes, multiple cannons needed to be cast for repeated experiments, and money would simply be spent.

I remember when the Ministry of Works first started casting long-barreled cannons, they cast more than ten in a row but none of them worked. They used up a lot of gunpowder to test them, and some of them even exploded.

Finally, it was only after learning and perfecting the cannon-casting technique from the trenches that he was considered to have mastered this cannon-casting technology.

Several thousand taels of silver were spent lavishly during the Ministry of Works' exploration process, while Haojing also paid a price of over a thousand taels of silver.

"The Ministry of Works can work with the Ministry of Rites and the Embroidered Uniform Guard to carry out this matter, but the Ministry of Revenue will not provide much financial assistance, so they will have to find their own way to raise the funds."

Zhang Juzheng began to speak.

He had to say this because he was worried that the Ministry of Works would ask the Ministry of Revenue for three to five thousand taels of silver every year, and the Ministry of Revenue would waste three to five thousand taels of silver like that.

"That's why I said it's permissible to sell some of the unused muskets to more respectful vassal states like Korea and Ryukyu."

Wei Guangde spoke up.

Well, it's like taking over the gray income of some people below and making the Ministry of Works do it openly, using the money earned to subsidize the development of firearms.

"Actually, some less practical items, such as a batch of arquebuses cast earlier, can also be sold to vassal states like Korea and Ryukyu, as well as the Sulu Kingdom. They had previously petitioned to purchase warships and cannons from the Ming Dynasty, so we can give them some of the ones we had salvaged."

Wei Guangde continued.

The arquebuses he mentioned earlier were actually among the earliest batches cast in Nanjing, one of which was still in Wei Guangde's possession.

There was nothing wrong with the muskets themselves, but it was later discovered after they were transported to the northern border towns that the bullets were not armor-piercing enough because of their small caliber.

Naturally, the Union Army looked down on these muskets.

In reality, for the northern border troops, if they couldn't penetrate the leather armor worn by the Mongols, such firearms were no different from sticks for burning.

Therefore, this batch of muskets was returned to the armory and sealed, instead of being destroyed directly. Since there were still quite a few in the Jiangnan garrisons, a batch would be shipped to the various garrisons of the Southern Army from time to time.

Li Chengliang had specifically requested that the batch of muskets not be used, because he came from the north and knew that the imperial court still possessed these firearms that were more for show than practical use.

The Southern army was able to use it because they had no armored enemies.

The gun was aimed at what were known as the mob, so it could naturally be used.

Wei Guangde thought of making use of these weapons and selling them to Korea and Ryukyu. After all, their enemies were weak in this area, and these firearms were still lethal.

"We can sell some Fujian-style ships and single-deck gunboats to Sulu, along with a small number of cannons and arquebuses." Zhang Juzheng had a good impression of Sulu and was very respectful to the Ming Dynasty, even though they hadn't had any contact for over a hundred years.

The fact that the Sulu Kingdom was willing to assemble a large army to assist the Ming army in battle based solely on the waist tokens carried by the government troops already speaks volumes.

The Ming army's most advanced double-decker gunboats could not be sold, but single-decker ones could.

Zhang Siwei and Shen Shixing did not object to adding Sulu to the list of countries for foreign military sales, which was due to their previous impressions of each other.

"In that case, let's settle on these three kingdoms for now. If other vassal states request our assistance later, we can discuss it further."

Seeing this, Wei Guangde did not want to dwell on the matter any longer and made the decision.

Zhang Juzheng nodded slightly, and then Zhang Siwei and Shen Shixing echoed his sentiments, thus finalizing the first batch of military sales to the Ming Dynasty.

"Then the Ministry of Rites can issue a document to the three kingdoms, stating that if they intend to purchase our Ming Dynasty's military equipment, they can contact the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Works, negotiate and reach an agreement, and then submit a memorial to the throne."

When Wei Guangde said this, he was essentially setting the rules.

First, discuss the business; once the deal is finalized and approved by the imperial court, the arms deal can proceed.

The advantage of doing this is that the news can be kept as hidden as possible before the negotiations begin, so that not too many people know about it, and so that no one, no matter who, wants to get involved and get a share of the pie.

Don't be fooled by the Ministry of Works and the Ministry of War, and by Wei Guangde's seemingly impressive abilities. So what? Those people may not be able to accomplish anything, but they can certainly cause trouble.

When the time comes, as long as they oppose the memorials and impeach this person or that person, they can ruin the whole thing.

For example, if the unit price of weapons is too low, it raises suspicions that the officials involved in the negotiations and the envoys of the vassal states were secretly exchanging goods. Who can say for sure?

As for whether there was any investigation, he simply reported it as hearsay and that was it.

It's likely that Zhang Juzheng was quite pleased to see this scene, which gave Wei Guangde a headache.

That's how their relationship is. They agree on major issues, but they also have a lot of private squabbles.

Even if they don't fight amongst themselves, they still have a group of people behind them who want to advance and will force them to fight within the cabinet.

"Let's write a report on this matter and send it to the Qianqing Palace. We should also inform the palace."

Wei Guangde continued.

"Ah."

This time, none of the three cabinet ministers objected.

They all realized, to some extent, that the emperor had grown too powerful, and many things could no longer be decided by their own words; the palace had to make the final decisions.

After staying in the Grand Secretary's office for a while, Wei Guangde finally came out and returned to his own office.

The room was kept very clean, and Lu Bu didn't dare to slack off.

Even during Wei Guangde's trip south, he would come to the house every morning to clean it, then find an excuse to go out and give himself a day off.

Of course, he wasn't completely indifferent to affairs; he also cultivated relationships with several secretaries within the cabinet to gather information about what was happening within the cabinet.

Otherwise, if he comes back to find out nothing has happened, it would be his dereliction of duty.

"Sir, you must be tired from this trip."

Wei Guangde sat back in his official hat chair, and Lu Bu had already diligently served him tea.

"Is there anything going on at the yamen lately?"

Wei Guangde asked.

"The cabinet remains unchanged, but there is a rumor circulating in the city that cabinets have always been of odd numbers, and since there have been even numbers of cabinet ministers for several years now, it is time to add another one."

"Ok?"

As soon as Lu Bu finished speaking, Wei Guangde frowned.

In fact, there is no fixed number of cabinet ministers, but for a long time it has indeed been an odd number.

Ultimately, it means that when disagreements arise, a vote can be used to decide the outcome.

The terms "Grand Secretary" and "Second Grand Secretary" in the cabinet are merely conventional terms used by the ministers. Although the palace accepts them, strictly speaking, there is indeed a hierarchy among the cabinet ministers. However, when the cabinet speaks and acts, it does not actually consider the palace's authority; decisions are made collectively.

However, since the chief minister and the second chief minister have a say in the selection of new ministers, it is inevitable that certain factions will form.

Just like Zhang Juzheng and Zhang Siwei, Wei Guangde and Shen Shixing.

Wei Guangde did not believe that he had created the rumors; he was sure that someone was stirring things up, perhaps with the intention of taking things further.

From a perspective of benefiting from these opportunities, Wei Guangde quickly turned his attention to the Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of Personnel.

At this point, if anyone is qualified to join the cabinet, it would be one of these two departments.

The two ministers and several vice ministers could all be the masterminds behind this matter.

"When did it come out?"

Wei Guangde suddenly asked.

He hadn't heard Zhang Ji mention this matter at home for the past two days, even though Zhang Ji should have known about it much earlier.

"I heard it yesterday, it came from the north of the city. I heard the news first appeared in the military household street in the south of the city."

Large areas in both the north and south of the capital were allocated to the Beijing Garrison for the construction of housing for its officers and soldiers.

Furthermore, since these people not only had family members working in the Beijing Garrison, but also many of their children had already integrated into various industries in the capital, rumors could indeed spread quickly throughout the capital by being passed on through them.

"Check it out and see which company is behind it all."

It's easier to trace the source of rumors by working with people like Lu Bu, who knows many people in the Beijing garrison and are also politically sensitive.

It's said that people from Beijing can talk about national affairs, and this has been true even in this era; they can speak eloquently about them.

As they spread these messages, there were naturally some clever people who noticed the subtle clues and discovered the underlying issues.

Having Lubu find someone to investigate is actually more efficient than having Zhang Ji arrange for someone to trace the source.

Of course, the Embroidered Uniform Guard would be faster, but it wouldn't be appropriate to send them.

After all, he was the emperor's henchman. If everyone said that Grand Secretary Wei could command the Embroidered Uniform Guard, that would be the end of him.

Just then, a voice came from outside, "Is Manager Lu here? Manager Lu."

"Go and see what's going on."

Wei Guangde waved his hand and said.

Not long after Lu Bu went out, he came back into the house carrying seven or eight memorials.

"The memorials just sent by the Ministry of Justice, and those sent yesterday, have all been distributed to those three families."

Lu Bu stood by the desk, holding the memorial, and said softly.

"Put it there."

Wei Guangde nodded, picked up his teacup, took a sip, and then said, "Have someone investigate this matter thoroughly, and report back to me immediately if there's any news." (End of Chapter)