prosperous age

As Liu Shouyou emerged from the Qianqing Palace, his mind was filled with the scene he had just witnessed.

When the Emperor heard his report, he wasn't thinking about the Ming Dynasty expanding its territory by 300 li, but rather about the million-dollar indemnity, of which 400,000 was to be deposited into the palace as private funds.

Little did Liu Shouyou know that the royal family's shares would be shipped out today.

Three million taels of silver nearly emptied the imperial treasury in one fell swoop.

Emperor Wanli even went into the silver vault, which was so large that mice could run through it.

While not completely empty, it certainly felt quite bare.

According to the records, only a little over 100,000 taels of silver remained in the treasury.

More than 100,000 taels of silver.

a lot of.

But for the inner court, it was less than a month's worth of expenses.

The exact amount of silver consumed by the Ming Dynasty imperial palace in a year is a subject of much debate in later generations, with the most widely accepted figure being between 400 million and 600 million taels of silver annually.

However, this number is actually greatly overestimated.

Because the expenditure of 4 to 500 million taels of silver cannot be an annual occurrence.

However, it is possible that it will occur in a year or several years, depending on whether the emperor designates the construction of a large-scale project.

In other words, such a huge expense could only be for a palace project.

In cases where the Ministry of Works handles the production or bears the material costs, while the inner court is responsible for the majority of the remaining expenses.

Just like the many temples and monasteries built during the Jiajing reign, all of these expenses were included in the imperial palace's expenditures.

How much of the inner palace's resources were actually used in a year?
The amount of silver spent by the Ming Dynasty imperial palace in a year varies greatly due to the enormous size and complexity of palace expenditures, as well as the different years and reigns of different emperors.

Furthermore, historical records mostly contain data on individual expenditures or specific years, so there is no unified figure for the "total annual silver expenditure".

In summary, its expenses mainly consisted of several major parts, including the consumption of the imperial harem, royal meals, palace construction, and internal treasury expenditures, each of which amounted to astronomical figures.

The Ming Dynasty imperial harem was known for its extravagant spending. In the late Ming Dynasty alone, the annual expenditure on cosmetics and face powder for women in the harem reached as high as 40 taels of silver.

This does not include other enormous expenses such as food, clothing, housing, servants' wages, and fuel.

The food standards in the palace were extremely luxurious. According to the "Bao Ri Tang Miscellaneous Notes", the monthly food expenses of the Imperial Kitchen alone amounted to 1.4 taels of silver, totaling more than 16.8 taels of silver per year.

This included a massive amount of ingredients such as 126 jin of pork, 5 geese, and 33 chickens every day. Due to the imperial court's rule of "never being too particular about food," a large amount of ingredients were discarded during the processing.

During the Wanli era, the cost of imperial meals once soared to an astonishing 29 taels per year.

This expenditure does not include the food expenses of eunuchs, palace officials, attendants, palace servants, kitchen attendants, and eunuchs; it only covers the food of the emperor and the noble ladies of the harem.

The construction and maintenance of the imperial palace cost the most money.

In the 41st year of the Jiajing reign, the three main halls were rebuilt after a fire caused by lightning in the 36th year of the Jiajing reign. The project was completed in the 41st year of the Jiajing reign and renamed Huangji Hall, Zhongji Hall and Jianji Hall in the same year.

The total cost of this renovation exceeded 600 million taels of silver.

Over five years, the annual cost of repairing the three main halls alone exceeded one million taels of silver.

At that time, the annual income of the Ming Dynasty was only a little over two million taels of silver.

During the Jiajing era of the Ming Dynasty, a huge fiscal deficit was also formed.

In fact, the Forbidden City in Beijing, built by Zhu Di, was constructed multiple times. In particular, the several fires that occurred in the three main halls resulted in a total reconstruction cost of more than 20 million taels of silver.

When the three main halls were rebuilt in the 35th year of the Wanli reign, the construction cost reached 9 million taels of silver.

In addition, the portion used privately by the emperor was also enormous.

The Ming Dynasty had an "Inner Treasury" directly controlled by the emperor. Its expenditures were not subject to the supervision of the Ministry of Revenue and were mainly used for the private use of the royal family, rewards, and the purchase of jewelry.

During the Jiajing era, the imperial court mainly purchased materials such as gold powder for religious ceremonies. The Longqing Emperor preferred to purchase jewelry to give to his concubines in the harem. The Wanli Emperor was extremely obsessed with jewelry, and once spent 40 taels of silver on a single purchase.

Even after deducting the cost of building the palace, the royal family still had an annual expenditure of seven or eight hundred thousand taels of silver.

In addition, the food, lodging, and monthly salaries of the thousands of palace maids and tens of thousands of eunuchs in the palace also require four to five hundred thousand taels of silver every year.

The Wanli Emperor's remaining 100,000 taels of silver were barely enough to cover a month's expenses.

Therefore, the first order Emperor Wanli gave after leaving the treasury was to have Zhang Hong issue decrees to all imperial estates and shops in various regions, ordering them to hand over all their silver and money.

Besides the fact that the imperial court bears most of the expenses of the palace, the royal family's own businesses also contribute a considerable portion.

Of course, the main ones were the imperial estates in various regions.

Therefore, the emperors of the Ming Dynasty were large landowners, owning a vast amount of land.

However, this output can only sustain the even larger number of palace maids and eunuchs in the palace.

Now that Wei Guangde has taken three million taels of silver from the imperial treasury, the emperor is indeed impoverished and can only try every means to extract money from various sources.

Even royalty needs to maintain their dignity; without money, they lose their dignity.

The Imperial Guards dared not investigate the royal family's accounts, so Liu Shouyou naturally had no idea.

However, he was quite surprised by the emperor's extreme desire for money.

No one would have imagined that an emperor who possessed wealth across the world could be poor.

In Liu Shouyou's view, if the emperor needed to spend money, he could just ask Grand Secretary Wei.

The Ministry of Revenue isn't short of money. With an annual income of several million taels of silver, plus a million taels of silver just shipped from Japan, how could it possibly be short of funds?

No one, or rather, no official who had never worked in the Ministry of Revenue, would have imagined that beneath the seemingly enormous revenue of the Ming Dynasty lay a massive expenditure.

Everyone notices when money is being collected, but nobody pays attention when money is being spent.

"My lord, Commander Liu of the Embroidered Uniform Guard requests an audience."

In the cabinet, Wei Guangde was on duty. Liu Shouyou came out of the Qianqing Palace and went straight to the cabinet to report the news from Japan to Wei Guangde.

"Let him in."

When Wei Guangde heard that it was Liu Shouyou who had arrived, he knew that there must be important intelligence to be conveyed, so he spoke.

Soon, Liu Shouyou came in, while Wei Guangde continued to read memorials at his desk in the inner room.

After Liu Shouyou bowed, he put down the memorial in his hand and asked, "Siyun, is there any important news?"

"Grand Secretary Wei, important intelligence has arrived from Japan. General Qi and the Japanese leader, Hideyoshi Hashiba, have reached a preliminary draft agreement."

The Imperial Guards received a copy of the draft and immediately sent it back.

Liu Shouyou had already taken out another copy of the contract and handed it over with both hands.

Wei Guangde reached out and took it, quickly flipping through the pages.

The draft contract was rather long, and Wei Guangde skimmed through the content.

I only skim through the main points of each item, and only read the important ones carefully.

It took some time to finish reading the draft.

After putting down the draft contract in his hand, he let out a long sigh and said with a smile, "The matter with Japan is finally over."

The fact that the Japanese have now acknowledged ceding western Honshu and Sado Island, along with paying reparations, is a pleasant surprise.

"Yes, His Majesty said the same thing when I delivered the draft contract to the Qianqing Palace just now."

Did Liu Shou conceal the fact that he went to see the emperor first before coming here?

Wei Guangde didn't care at all. The Embroidered Uniform Guard was, after all, the imperial family's henchmen. If Liu Shouyou really put the cart before the horse, then he would be in danger. Wei Guangde needed Liu Shouyou in the position of commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard to help him gather intelligence from all sides, so he didn't take it seriously.

Wei Guangde nodded, then subconsciously glanced at the door of the duty room.

The place was deserted; no official documents from the Ministry of War were delivered.

Wei Guangde then shook his head and laughed, "It seems that Lord Wang has not yet sent back the battle report, but your Embroidered Uniform Guard has sent the message back first."

"Logically, Wang Jinglue should have already written his memorial and sent someone back to deliver it by now."

This contract was sent back to me as soon as my spies at Datian Manor obtained it.

"General Qi's message should first be sent to Lord Wang, who will then draft the memorial. It will definitely be slower than my own."

Liu Shouyou hurriedly laughed.

"Siyun, although the war against Japan has ended, the Jinyiwei's power in Japan can only be strengthened, not relaxed."

The Japanese are cunning. According to the intelligence they sent back earlier, they had no firearms, especially gunpowder, which is why they had to stop the war.

Subsequently, the Embroidered Uniform Guard was to monitor merchant ships traveling to and from Japan and prohibit anyone from smuggling saltpeter into Japan.

Only in this way can the possibility of the Japanese revolt be nipped in the bud.

Wei Guangde instructed, "Moreover, since the Embroidered Uniform Guard has the responsibility of spying on the surrounding vassal states, even if they are friendly to our Great Ming, we must establish good intelligence networks with countries such as Korea and Ryukyu."

We need to figure out which of them are genuinely friendly to our Great Ming Dynasty and which are hypocritical.

The imperial court could not distinguish the true attitudes of various countries and had to rely entirely on intelligence support provided by the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

Therefore, even though the war is over, the Embroidered Uniform Guard still has a long way to go.

Go back and sort things out carefully, and re-examine the forces that have infiltrated from all sides.

For example, to the east of my Great Ming Dynasty are Korea, Japan, and Ryukyu. We will incorporate them into one region and manage them under a special person.

The various vassal states of Southeast Asia also formed a separate department, managed by designated personnel.

There's also the Indian subcontinent and further west to the Tianfang region; the Jinyiwei have only just entered those areas, right?
That's not enough. The Embroidered Uniform Guard's covert operations need to continue westward, pushing the intelligence network into the Bamboo Cloth, ideally reaching Europe.

This allowed the imperial court to keep abreast of the situation in the far west.

You've seen the news the previous mission brought back, and you even sent people with the mission and recruited some Ming people to keep an eye on things there.

To truly extend the reach of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, a route must be established that allows those people to safely and quickly send back what they have seen.

They're just issuing waist tags; what use is the information they see and hear if it can't be sent back to the capital?

"Grand Secretary Wei, currently intelligence transmission is mainly done through merchant ships, which is indeed a bit slow."

However, establishing a dedicated transmission channel would be difficult due to ongoing warfare in Arabia and Europe, making it hard to maintain the current route continuously.

Liu Shouyou frowned.

In fact, the Embroidered Uniform Guard did not pay much attention to the Ming Dynasty's infiltration of its intelligence system into the Middle East.

In fact, if it weren't for Myanmar, the Middle East would be too far from the Ming Dynasty.

What use are events happening in places too far away to the Ming Dynasty?

Most people believe that such behavior is a waste of money and has no benefit whatsoever.

"The capital must be informed of all major events happening in the country, and the court must be informed at all times, even if it is delayed by a year or two."

Wei Guangde immediately said.

Just like when the Embroidered Uniform Guard persuaded those Ming people in Europe to join them, they gave them some silver and a waist token.

Their method of transmitting so-called "intelligence" was to write letters, in the style of ordinary family letters, and send them back to the Ming Dynasty via Portuguese merchant ships.

Given the current situation, it would take Portuguese merchant ships more than half a year to travel from Lisbon to the Indian Ocean, and then another year or two to reach Myanmar.

As for traveling overland, turning east from the Ottoman Empire, that route was even more dangerous.

Throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, the Ottomans were constantly expanding outwards, and the Middle East was rife with war, with the conflict with Persia never ceasing.

"Currently, the Jinyiwei mainly deploys personnel in various ports in the West to obtain intelligence from merchants and sailors about the West."

Liu Shouyou hurriedly said that he did not want to leave a negative impression on Wei Guangde, as if the Embroidered Uniform Guard had not followed his instructions.

"This is one way, but the information obtained from these people is mostly hearsay, and its authenticity needs to be verified."

But your approach is correct: obtain intelligence through various means and analyze it yourselves.

Even if there are discrepancies, it's not a big deal.

The imperial court didn't actually want to interfere in the affairs of the far west, but rather to understand their movements, especially the wars that were breaking out between so many countries in Europe.

Wei Guangde never forgot the preparations he had made with the Ministry of Works. If war broke out in Europe recently, the Ming Dynasty could prepare some firearms and sell them to Europe when the opportunity arose.

"By the way, has any news come back from the contact with Persia?"

Wei Guangde suddenly asked.

This was a task assigned to Liu Shouyou before the New Year. Knowing that a war had broken out between the Ottomans and Persia, Wei Guangde intended to first obtain a batch of arquebuses to test the waters and see the superiority or inferiority of the Ming Dynasty's firearms compared to the Ottoman firearms.

It should be noted that Ottoman firearms at that time were considered quite formidable by modern standards.

By comparing them with other weapons, we can see the strengths and weaknesses of Ming Dynasty firearms and find directions for improvement.

"Not yet. They've been gone for almost half a year, so they should have arrived by now."

Perhaps, if we wait a little longer, good news will come.

Wei Guangde sent the Embroidered Uniform Guard out to do business, specifically selling firearms that were strictly prohibited by the imperial court, which naturally opened Liu Shouyou's eyes to a whole new world.

The Embroidered Uniform Guard was already a lawless organization, but he really didn't expect that Grand Secretary Wei's business would be even more shameless.

It's true, the Embroidered Uniform Guard dared not sell firearms, but Grand Secretary Wei did, and even dragged the Ministry of Works and the Ministry of War into doing this business together.

"I'm doing this for the sake of balance. Only when those countries have checks and balances on each other will they obediently show respect to the Ming Dynasty."

The message the mission sent back indicated that the Ottoman Empire was a force to be reckoned with by all the countries of Europe.

They completely suppressed Persia in the land of the gods.

It's really not a good thing for a country like this to develop.

Wei Guangde sighed.

"Your Excellency's profound wisdom and foresight are truly admirable."

At the time, I just took it as a joke and didn't really think about it too much.

However, after the Grand Secretary's reminder, I finally realized how formidable the Ottomans were.

It was able to suppress Persia in the east and the European countries in the west at the same time.

If they were to successfully conquer Persia and cross India, they would be bordering our Great Ming Dynasty.

Liu Shouyou hurriedly flattered him.

The Ottomans initially wanted to form an alliance with the Ming Dynasty because they hoped to achieve peace and cooperation with the Ming Dynasty and eliminate Persia.

However, after actually sending an envoy, they discovered that the Ming Dynasty and Persia were too far apart to establish a connection, so they abandoned the plan.

However, it also left the Ming Dynasty with the Rumi gun, demonstrating the advanced nature of Ottoman firearms technology at the time. (End of Chapter)