prosperous age

Chapter 505 504 Prohibition of Liaodong Shipping

The time finally entered December of the 41st year of Jiajing, and Wei Guangde began to drift again.

Before that, Wei Guangde's time was not only going to the Yamen to do errands, but also going home from the Yamen, but all this gradually relaxed after Wei's mother rushed to Beijing when the canal was frozen.

Naturally, Wei's mother came to Beijing to take care of the pregnant Xu Jianglan, which made Wei Guangde heave a sigh of relief. He could go back to his old life, drink with his colleagues and listen to music with peace of mind after leaving office.

Although it is possible to hire an experienced midwife in the capital to serve as the master, neither Wei Guangde nor Xu Jianglan is familiar with these things, and often they will be in a hurry and order randomly. With Wei's mother in the capital, everyone is much more at ease.

Participating in these activities can not only enhance the relationship between Wei Guangde and his colleagues, but also hear a lot of news from the DPRK and China. During the banquet, after drinking a few glasses of wine, many people will no longer guard their mouths. No matter what information they hear in the yamen, They all jumped out.

Although Prince Yu's Mansion has placed its own people in the cabinet, the six ministries, and even the General Secretary to investigate the information in the court, there will still be a lot of information that will be missed, and of course most of it is useless information, at least Wei Guangde I think it is of little value to him, or to Yu Wangfu, but some of them are valuable, but they are not related to Yu Wangfu on the surface, so they are ignored.

For example, Wei Guangde heard the news from the officials of the Ministry of Household Affairs that the chief envoy of Shandong had complained to the court many times that due to the famine in Liaodong the year before last, sea transportation was temporarily allowed, so that Liao ships could go to Shandong and Lai to buy food to relieve the hunger.

Later, Liaodong merchants took this as a big profit, and privately carried goods to and from Shandong. As a result, the sea ban was gradually relaxed. It is hoped that the imperial court will reconsider the sea transportation strategy.

The re-opening of shipping to Jiliao was actually a project initiated by Jia Yingchun, a member of Yuwangfu when he was the Minister of the Household Department. This move was supported by Gao Gong, Wei Guangde and other people in Yuwangfu, hoping to prove the reliability of shipping and get rid of Insufficient navigability of the Grand Canal restricts north-south traffic.

Moreover, under the influence of Wei Guangde, King Yu has also developed a strong interest in sea trade, but because he is unfamiliar with the sea, he still has deep worries about the safety of sea transportation.

Especially according to what Wei Guangde said, the opening of sea trade will not only attract barbarian people to come to Daming for trade, but also people in Daming will go to sea to do business. After all, profits come out in the turnover of goods, and the profits are not Small.

Emperor Jiajing was often troubled by money, and although King Yu had not succeeded to the throne, he had already felt the financial constraints on the court.

Moreover, if Shandong's lobbying in the DPRK and China really makes progress, then Wei Guangde himself will suffer actual losses.

Wei Guangde kept asking Zhang Ji to buy wild ginseng. At the beginning, Zhang Ji still wandered around in various medicine shops in the capital, but after a long time, he also knew the inside story.

These ginsengs were bought by drugstores from merchants running in Liaodong. One more middleman would naturally bring more profits. In order to save money, Zhang Ji began to contact these chambers of commerce and buy ginseng directly from them.

In this way, Zhang Ji met many Liaodong businessmen in the process of purchasing wild ginseng, and also knew that there are really many special products in Liaodong.

Taking this as an opportunity, under the instruction of Wei Guangde, a small business group composed of Liaodong merchants and Jiujiang merchants was established, including Huitong Commercial Bank, and many Jiujiang merchants in Beijing joined it for trade.

Even with the protection of Wei Guangde, for the isolated Liaodong Town, the land transportation still cannot guarantee safety and smoothness, especially outside Shanhaiguan, where there is a mixed settlement, not only Han Chinese live here, but also many Mongolian nomads here. But they are all tribes that have a good relationship with Ming Dynasty.

Moreover, the terrain in many places along the way is complicated. There are still mountains when you come out of the mountain. Not to mention the rugged mountain roads, there are still many bandits and robbers haunting them. Down, unless a large caravan is formed and the forces are stronger than them, they can pass safely.

Moreover, even with Wei Guangde's famous assassin, you can only guarantee that you can pass the customs. No one will trouble you, and forcibly seize the goods of the caravan, but the money that should be filial is indispensable.

With these obstacles, a large amount of goods in the caravan were transported by sea to Shandong for turnover, and were transported back to the capital from Shandong or directly trafficked to the south of the Yangtze River through the canal.

Wei Guangde doesn't know how to do business, but since he has worked so hard to do this, he naturally has his own shares in this chamber of commerce.

To get a share of it, it is natural to escort this group.

Although Wei Guangde is a Beijing official, after all, the official position is so big, sometimes it is really not easy to use, so last year, because of some small troubles in Shandong, he also got a Xu Jie's famous card through Zhang Juzheng's relationship. .

Although the title of Wei Guangde Yushi is indeed a bluff sometimes, but in order to avoid trouble and increase contact with Elder Xu Ge, he still spent money to get one.

With these relationships, Wei Guangde was naturally taken aback when he heard the news.

Yu Wang's attention to sea trade has also shifted to sea transportation. In fact, the cost of sea transportation and land transportation is very good.

Transporting a large amount of goods by sea to Shandong seems to take more distances, but the actual cost can be reduced by [-]%, and the safety is also higher.

Passing through Shanhaiguan by land, in addition to exploiting officials along the way, the imperial court also collected commercial taxes at Shanhaiguan. For those unearthed from the middle, Shanhaiguan collected [-] cents, and Liaodong [-] cents.

And by sea, the goods entering and leaving Liaodong are the same as the canal grain ships, all carried out by entrainment, and only need to give the soldiers a certain amount of money.

Although Yu Wang didn't say it clearly, he is also looking forward to shipping and even sea trade.

Unknown, it was also because of the consideration of Emperor Jiajing's attitude.

At this banquet, Wei Guangde also roughly inquired about the Ministry of Household Affairs' opinion on this, that is, as long as Liaodong's agricultural harvest is bumper and there is no need for inland food assistance, it is indeed possible to consider not sending grain by sea, but as long as the Liaodong grain shortage problem is not resolved, Shipping cannot be interrupted.

The attitude of the Ministry of War is relatively conservative, or it should be said that it is a young and radical force among the conservatives.

For security reasons, the Ministry of War has always opposed the sea ban.

Originally, the Ministry of War could not get many resources every year, and the nine borders were slightly insufficient. Naturally, there was not much energy invested in coastal defense.

The sea transportation to Jiliao forced the Ministry of War to take out a sum of money from the small funds to buy a new batch of warships for the Denglai Navy to ensure the safety of the waterway.

Although Liaodong has a vast area, it is not an independent area in the division of administrative regions in the Ming Dynasty. It has always been merged into the jurisdiction of the Chief Secretary of Shandong, but in Liaodong, the military town model is implemented, that is, military control.

In the early Ming Dynasty, the imperial court attached great importance to Liaodong. The Hongwu and Yongle dynasties migrated people to Liaodong many times. However, because Liaodong was not fully developed at that time and the living conditions were extremely poor, few people could really take root here, and the immigration policy was very effective. micro.

In fact, from the perspective of the Ming government, it is not cost-effective to rule Liaodong in the same way as the mainland. Due to the poor local basic conditions, the entire Liaodong cannot bring much tax revenue to the Ming Dynasty, but the cost of rule is extremely high. high.

It is for this reason that the Ming Dynasty paid little attention to civil affairs in addition to the military aspect of Liaodong.

The imperial court's emphasis on Liaodong's military affairs was more for the purpose of encircling Beiyuan from the northeast.

With the repeated Northern Expeditions during the Hongwu and Yongle years, the Northern Yuan Dynasty had completely collapsed. In the Renxuan period, the Tatars and Oirats were busy competing for the domination of the grasslands, and it was difficult to pose a threat to the Ming Dynasty. The strategic role of Liaodong began to decline significantly. .

During the Jiajing period, although the rise of the Mongolian Alta Khan once again posed a threat to the Ming Dynasty, due to financial difficulties, it was difficult for the imperial court to reproduce the large-scale military operations of the early Ming Dynasty. It is very vacillating, and it has been unable to increase the military power of Liaodong again.

For the entire northern land, extending all the way to the vast Siberia region of the Arctic Ocean, Wei Guangde certainly knows that the strategic value is huge, especially the extremely rich resources there.

However, in the face of the cruel environment, even Liaodong could not allow the Han people to take root and live there. It is naturally an extravagant hope to continue to expand the territory to the north. I did not see that the Jurchens, the northern ethnic groups, were forced to move south, praying for a place to survive in the border areas of the Ming Dynasty. land.

There is no way to establish towns and move people, just to send a team of elite soldiers to patrol from time to time, this kind of rule is actually not effective at all, and no one will be convinced of your territorial rights.

It is still in a state where the jungle is preying on the weak. If you want to control an area, you must achieve real rule, which is more comparable to fists.

When others come, if you can drive them away, this is your territory.

If you can't beat others, then you can only give up.

Overseas now, the vigorous age of voyage initiated by the Europeans has directly divided up the newly discovered continent.

But the carve-up is not a fait accompli.

In fact, in the future, countless wars, large and small, will break out in order to compete for these colonies.

It was not until the British confirmed their hegemony that such wars gradually decreased.

In Wei Guangde's view, his meddling in Liaodong's business is to create opportunities for the people who migrated there, so that they can live better.

Only when the people in Liaodong are well-off can they live and work in peace and contentment.

When King Yu comes to power, he can try to bring up this matter again, relocate some people to Liaodong, continue to expand the territory northward, and slowly swallow that piece of land steadily.

If Mao rushed to build a big city somewhere in the far north, the population would not be attracted, and soldiers would not be willing to go there. At that time, countless military households would inevitably flee.

In the north now, it is really impossible for people to live, and the living conditions are too difficult.

If you want to keep this big city running, you can only spend a lot of money, but Daming simply doesn't have the money to expand to the north.

Even going to the north, except for fur and mountain goods, there are really not many profitable businesses in this era, and it takes a lot of manpower and material resources to transfer materials. A modicum of interest.

Even if Wei Guangde threw out the reason for expanding the territory, it was still invalid.

Even in later generations, the vast Siberia region still has a limited area of ​​development, and the ecological environment is too harsh. Perhaps only Maozi living at the same latitude can adapt to such an environment.

However, what made Wei Guangde feel a little relieved was that although Shandong had opened up the relationship with the imperial court and let people speak up for this matter, after all, at this stage, no matter whether it is the Ministry of Households or the Ministry of War, the main energy has not shifted in this direction.

In the south of the Yangtze River, although Zhang Lian was put to death, the wave of rebellion that was mobilized was higher than the wave.

Many bandits in the past, after seeing Zhang Lian's rapid expansion of power, followed suit, and many Zhang Lian's old troops or hid in the mountains to avoid the army and rebelled again, and they have blossomed everywhere. What's more, the current Xinghua Fucheng is still occupied by Japanese pirates.

"Shan Loan, I heard from the teacher yesterday that the decree of Dayou's appointment as the commander-in-chief of Fujian may have to be delayed for a while, and the decree will only be made after the recovery of Fuhua Mansion."

Wei Guangde was flipping through the transcribed grand ceremony delivered two days ago, Zhang Juzheng beside him whispered to him.

"Why delay?"

Wei Guangde was a little strange, this matter has been talked about for a long time, but the decree has not been issued, so naturally it can only be regarded as a rumor.

A few days ago, I got another confirmation from Zhang Juzheng, but I didn't expect to say that again today.

"I heard that in Fujian, in order to recover the revival, generals such as Liu Xian, Yu Dayou, and Qi Jiguang were dispatched to lead troops. Right now, Qi Jiguang's troops are still in Zhejiang, and Yu Dayou's side is still packing up troops. If an order is issued at this time The promotion of Yu Dayou to the commander-in-chief of Fujian will embarrass the two generals Liu and Qi."

Zhang Juzheng explained.

"Yu Dayou, he had a letter a few days ago, saying that Ye Huai in Anyuan County and Li Wenbiao in Longnan County in Ganzhou Prefecture had gathered a crowd to make trouble, and he was about to go there when he returned to the army. I'm afraid it was because of this that he delayed the recovery of Fuhua City."

Wei Guangde nodded and said.

People in Fujian, Guangdong and Jiangxi continued to gather crowds to make troubles. This is also known from Yu Dayou's letter. Originally, Wei Guangde thought that if Zhang Lian was wiped out, Jiangnan would be safe for a while.

"By the way, Uncle, I wonder if you are clear about the shipping to Liao?"

When Wei Guangde said this, he suddenly thought of the news he heard two days ago, so he asked.

"I know what you're talking about. At the beginning of the famine in Liaodong, the Ministry of Household Affairs asked for permission to buy grain from Denglai, Shandong and other places and send it to Liaodong to stabilize the area."

Zhang Juzheng put down the book in his hand, looked at Wei Guangde and replied.

"I wonder if the cabinet has discussed this matter?"

Wei Guangde asked tentatively.

"You mean Shandong?"

Now that Xu Jie has replaced Yan Song, he is naturally aware of the situation in the DPRK and China, and will know immediately if there is any disturbance, and Zhang Juzheng, as his chosen and cultivated successor, is also very well informed.

Wei Guangde just said the beginning, and he already knew the reason.

Wei Guangde's family members were involved in the business with Liaodong, and Zhang Juzheng also knew about it.

In fact, in this day and age, most officials' families will have people involved in these side jobs, which is not surprising.

(End of this chapter)