Emperor Sui Yang

Chapter 428 Bashu Problem
At the court meeting that day, the Ministry of Officials delivered an interesting report.

In Nan'an County, Jian'an County, a sea master named He Man, every spring and autumn, when the sky is calm and the wind is light, he looks across the sea and finds a smog that stretches for thousands of miles. He thinks that there should be people living on the other side of the sea.

So I told the county magistrate, the county magistrate told the sheriff, and the sheriff reported it to the court.

A sea master is a person who is familiar with sea routes and drives ships.

There are many well-informed officials in the DPRK and China. Although some people have never been to many places, they have books. From the books, they can know a lot of things.

Su Wei said: "What this fisherman said is probably Yizhou. It is recorded in "Linhai Tuzhi" written by Shen Ying, a native of the Eastern Wu Dynasty, that Wu Jun and Sun Quan once sent Wei Wen and Zhuge Zhizhi to land on Yizhou. There are indeed barbarians."

Jian'an County belongs to Fujian, and Nan'an County is Quanzhou, Fujian. Who else is separated from Fujian by a sea?

But there is no navy in Jian'an County, and the navy is in Jiangdu. If you want to cross the sea, you need Jiangdu to dispatch large sea ships.

Yang Ming smiled at Su Wei: "Where did Fang Guogong see "Linhai Soil Chronicles?"

The corner of Su Wei's mouth twitched, and he said honestly: "The thing hidden in the minister's house is just a transcript."

Yang Ming looked at the secretary and supervisor Liu Yan again, and said, "Is there any secretary?"

"No," Liu Yan shook his head.

Su Wei quickly took the initiative and said: "The next minister will send someone to the secretary's office for copying."

With eyesight, Yang Ming smiled and said: "Since Sun Quan has been there, I have no reason not to go in the Sui Dynasty. I ordered the Jiangdu navy to send fifty boats to search and hand it over to Xiangyang Hussar General Zhou Zhongmo. As a guide, He Man, the sea master, crossed the sea to seek visits to other customs."

Duan Wenzhen, Minister of the Ministry of War, said: "Whether there is Yidao on the other side of the sea is still unknown. The Wu Kingdom is so long ago that it seems not enough to rely on some ancient books. I think it is advisable to send three or five ships to visit the sea first."

You're not sure, I'm sure, Yang Ming raised his hand and said: "There is a Wa country in Haidong, and of course there are barbarians living in Hainan, and the ancient land of Yizhou is recorded in the documents of the Han Dynasty, so it can't be wrong, so it's decided. "

All knowledge in ancient times came from books, but books were monopolized by aristocratic families, and almost every family had a large collection of unique copies, which was of great significance for the study of history.

In the current Sui Dynasty, how much you can know depends entirely on how many books you have at home, because you can’t read books from other houses, let alone those from the secretary province.

So what people know and think is very limited.

If Su Wei hadn't read "Lin Hai Tu Zhi", he wouldn't know.

And the knowledge that Yang Ming knows is the all-round detailed explanation of all the documents and ancient books compiled by later generations, so his understanding of this world is far beyond everyone present, but in terms of scheming and tactics, he may not be able to win These people are gone.

Taiwan is now called Liuqiu Country, and the barbarians living in this place have traveled from the mainland to the sea one after another for thousands of years. Their genetic alleles are exactly the same as those in South China.

It's impossible for Yang Ming not to take down Liuqiu, no matter what price he has to pay, of course, it doesn't need much price.

Zhou Zhongmou has been in Xiangyang, helping Yang Ming run the Xiangyang Navy. Yang Ming is relieved to entrust this task to him. Zhou Zhongmou's father, Zhou Luohu, also passed away a few years ago and was sent back to his hometown in Jiujiang. For the burial, Zhou Zhongmou was in an important position in the army, so he was naturally deprived of love.

Fifty boats, that is, about 2000 people, it is impossible to destroy Liuqiu, but the preliminary test is completely enough.

Comrade Yang Guang's investment promotion in Zhangye has achieved great results. At present, countless caravans from the Western Regions have entered Daxing, and some have gone directly to Luoyang.

The goods sold to the West in the Sui Dynasty were mainly food, textiles and handicrafts.

Among them, silk, hemp, tea, and porcelain are the most important. Right now, there is a shortage of food in the Sui Dynasty, and food is a strategic resource, so we will not sell it this time.

So what did Sui buy from the West?Cattle, horses, sheep, and animal husbandry products such as hides, wool, meat, and milk are basically complementary to each other, because the Sui Dynasty was an agricultural civilization, and what farming lacked most was livestock that could replace labor.

Honglu Temple was the busiest during this period, because they had to handle customs clearance documents for the Hu people who entered the country, so that they could go to various places in the Sui Dynasty to purchase goods.

The main currency of the Hu people was gold and silver, so a large amount of gold and silver flowed into the Sui Dynasty, and the Sui Dynasty used the gold and silver to buy their things.

Because of China's vast land and rich resources, the Sui Dynasty had a complete trade surplus and made a lot of money.

Therefore, Yang Ming did not persuade Yang Guang to go west this time, because he knew the significance of the west tour, which was different from building canals. One was to spend money, and the other was to make money.

The two most powerful porcelains in the Sui Dynasty were white glazed porcelain and green porcelain.

Green porcelain is actually celadon. The celadon craftsmanship of the Sui Dynasty was not as good as that of the Tang Dynasty, but the white glazed porcelain was already at its peak.

Yang Ming has a lot of these things. It is no exaggeration to say that the high-quality white glazes fired by later generations are at this level, and they are not much higher.

Porcelain is a strange thing. Many excellent works in ancient times cannot be fired with advanced technology in later generations.

After the court meeting, Yang Ming summoned a person in the East Palace.

He Chou, the Prime Minister of Taifu Temple, was the most powerful porcelain expert in the Sui Dynasty.

"Where is the biggest white kiln?" Yang Ming asked after asking the other party to sit down.

He Chou said: "Prince Hui, between Neiqiu County of Xiangguo County and Fangfang County of Zhao County, there are more than ten kilns. Because there are a lot of clay, bauxite, water jade (quartz) and other minerals in the area, So it is suitable for firing."

That's the area in Wei Zheng's hometown. Yang Ming nodded and said, "You are a master of porcelain and pottery. Now the white glaze technology has reached its limit. Have you ever thought about how to add color?"

White-glazed porcelain, which belongs to plain porcelain, has no pattern and color, but the maturity of white-glazed porcelain technology is the most basic condition for painted porcelain.

In fact, colored porcelain was fired in Wu State during the Three Kingdoms period. It belongs to the earliest colored porcelain, but his porcelain is fired with dark brown pigments. .

Therefore, Yang Ming hoped that He Chou could produce Tang Sancai pottery, and even blue and white porcelain.

He Chou also wondered, why is the prince so curious about this kind of thing?I haven't heard that you like porcelain?
He Chou said: "The craftsman probably knows about adding color under the glaze, but the pigment is hard to find."

It's not difficult, Tang Sancai is copper, iron, cobalt, and the green materials of blue and white porcelain, all in Jiangxi.

The raw materials are easy to find, but the firing process requires countless failures before it can be successful once, so Yang Ming probably pointed him in a direction and asked him to find these pigments. The rest depends on He Chou himself, after all Yang Ming didn't know how to make pottery at all.

If painted pottery and blue and white porcelain can come out, these two things are undoubtedly top luxury goods, which will boost the entire economy.

Because in the past, the most feared thing in the economy is that money will not circulate, and all the aristocratic families in the Sui Dynasty have a problem, that is, they don't spend much money.

To be precise, the ratio between the money that should be spent and the money he reserves is seriously mismatched.

You have a deposit of 100 million, but the monthly expenses are only 2000 yuan. No, you are hindering the circulation of money.

The Sui Dynasty paid great attention to funerary objects, and the top-level luxury accessories were also the top-level funerary objects.

The place where the most Tang Sancai was unearthed in later generations is Beiman Mountain in Luoyang. Why?Because there are graves of awesome people there.

The largest celadon kiln in the Sui Dynasty was in Kuaiji County in the south of the Yangtze River.

Xiangguo County in the north originally belonged to Xingzhou, so it was called Xing Kiln in history, and Kuaiji County was originally Yuezhou, so it was called Yue Kiln, so there is the saying that Nanqingbeibeibai.

When socio-political and economic development falls into a bottleneck, there are only two ways to solve the problem.

One is called war, and the other is called technological innovation.

If the current Sui Dynasty can successfully fire painted porcelain, it can be regarded as a technological innovation, which will inject a strong impetus into the market, thereby driving economic development and avoiding the use of war to solve problems.

So this kind of thing must be in the hands of the state, and the aristocratic family should not even think about messing with it.

So Yang Ming directly canonized He Chou as the minister of Taifu Temple, responsible for collecting raw materials and firing porcelain.

And this method can only delay social conflicts, but cannot cure them. If you want to cure them, you have to clean up the family, but it takes a long process to clean up the family. This process requires technological innovation to provide enough time.

So Yang Ming focused on woodblock printing and papermaking again, but these two had to be done slowly.

Right now, books are a monopoly for the royal family and the aristocratic family. If you dare to popularize them, the crown prince will not want to do it.

This thing can only wait until the aristocratic family is weakened, and an absolute totalitarian emperor will be the last straw to crush the camel of the aristocratic family.

It is not feasible to popularize schools at present, let alone print books.

Yang Rui and Yang Jin don't even think about reading for a month, because they have to sit while reading, and they can't sit.

Naturally, Li Shimin and Changsun Wuji couldn't read either, and took care of Yang Rui and Yang Jin honestly.

And Yang Yinjiang was pregnant again, and Pei Shuying also hoped that she would give Yang Ming another one, so in the following days, Yang Ming spent most of his time with Pei Shuying.

In November, Yang Guang returned to Beijing from Zhangye.

And several bigwigs who are in charge of various places are also returning to Beijing one after another.

This time, the imperial court brought back a huge amount of funds from the local area, plus taxes from the trade income of the barbarians in the Western Regions after they entered the Sui Dynasty, and the treasury was full in an instant.

Now no one has mentioned it anymore, and the money collected will be used to repay Hebei's account, because Hebei has no account.

As soon as Gao Yan came back, he met Yang Ming.

"Bashu must set up a general manager again. This area is rich in products and food, but most of them are in the hands of local wealthy families. My inspection this time is extremely difficult. It can be said that it is blocked everywhere, and the result is not ideal."

Faced with Gao Yan's helpless sigh, Yang Ming agreed:
"Improving Bashu is not a one-day effort. In the final analysis, it is still necessary to avoid avoidance so that local wealthy families can become officials, so as to solve the problem from the root."

Gao Yan nodded and said: "Avoiding Bashu is a tradition that has existed since ancient times. It is not easy to abolish it all at once, but I agree with His Highness's point of view. In the short term, we need to rely on the general manager to sit in the town, but in the long run we still need Bashu to return."

"We will discuss this matter at the court meeting tomorrow," Yang Ming said.

Gao Yan nodded and said, "Yes! I'll lead it out."

(End of this chapter)