I'm really not doing business

Chapter 733 In short, it’s all about free trade!

"Perhaps it is really difficult for the people of the Ming Dynasty to understand my current predicament. For the Ming Dynasty, it was a similar situation thousands of years ago." Oda Nobunaga said to Kuroda Kotaka somewhat helplessly.

Kuroda Takataka said helplessly: "The factional politics born from the feudal system is very unfamiliar to the Ming Dynasty. In the long history of the Ming Dynasty, only the Zhou Dynasty was somewhat similar, or perhaps even more distant. Today, we have to admit that the world's military power has failed. According to the contradiction theory, we have not completed the redistribution of the means of production."

Oda Nobunaga's goal of conquering the world was to eliminate separatist forces through military means. On the surface, he was the shogun of the Azuchi shogunate. He had the title conferred by the Emperor of Japan and the Ming Dynasty, and all daimyo recognized his status as the shogun. He was not imprisoned, and his decrees could be quickly delivered to the daimyo of Japan.

According to the Ming Dynasty's understanding, any palace coup must meet three conditions, that is, block the palace gates to prevent the emperor's orders from leaving the palace; block the armory to prevent the guards loyal to the emperor from obtaining weapons; block the Wenyuan Pavilion, the cabinet or the court, so that officials all over the world will only accept orders from powerful officials.

Sima Yi set an example more than 1,400 years ago. All powerful officials have adopted this approach, and no matter how things change, the essence remains the same.

But in Oda Nobunaga's case, he was not imprisoned, his samurai were still able to obtain weapons, and officials across the country were able to receive his orders, but the orders could not be executed. In essence, Oda Nobunaga was also overthrown by his superiors and was sidelined at every level. To put it clearly, his decrees were ineffective.

The changes of shogunate in Japan did not conform to the dynastic cycle, because the changes of shogunate in Japan never completed the redistribution of means of production. This led to a substantial result, that is, the daimyo in various places were not three ministers for four generations, but their ancestors for eighteen generations were all de facto daimyo. The terrible factional politics was very deformed, because there was no power above all classes to regulate the contradictions between classes.

To be more specific, Japan has not yet completed its national construction and is an incomplete country.

"So it is extremely wise for the general to send his family to the Ming Dynasty." Kuroda Kotaka said solemnly.

Oda Nobunaga sent his family to the Ming Dynasty as a compromise to invade Korea to resolve internal conflicts. It was also based on the current situation of being sidelined. The Ming emperor should have guessed some of the situations and accepted these people.

"Everything they have was given by me, including Akechi Mitsuhide and Hashiba Hideyoshi. But they already have their own ideas. For Japan, this terrible and deformed political system is better to be completely eliminated by the Ming Dynasty and start all over again." Oda Nobunaga said with a calm face, "I can't do it. After reading the contradiction theory, I realized that the root of the problem is the redistribution of means of production. Without the redistribution, all the government orders are just illusions."

"I didn't become a world-class person after all."

The Ming Dynasty fully implemented the Land Return Order in Songjiang Prefecture and Zhejiang Province. Oda Nobunaga was very envious of this news, because he knew very well that once the Land Return Order was started, it would be impossible to stop it and it would surely spread throughout the Ming Dynasty. Either it would succeed, or the Emperor would be defeated in the brutal political struggle.

Because people are like this, they are not worried about scarcity but inequality. The majority of people will definitely wonder why Zhejiang is the only province that has the order to return land.

Although the emperor still maintained sufficient restraint, the redistribution of the means of production in the Ming Dynasty had already begun and the land war had begun.

"The Ming Dynasty is being rebuilt from the ashes." Kuroda Takataka looked towards the east. The Ming Dynasty's already corrupt political system was rapidly recovering, but Japan was sliding into the abyss and there was no hope at all.

He did not think that this was a problem of Oda Nobunaga's ability. As Oda Nobunaga's think tank, Kuroda Kotaka actually had a vague idea that the deformed political system of Japan could only be completely corrected by relying on external forces.

If we extend the timeline to a hundred years, Japan does not have the ability to correct itself like China.

Oda Nobunaga looked at the calendar sent by the Ming Dynasty. April had arrived. April is the day when the monsoon changes. Every April, all the ports of Japan become busy. The merchant ships of the Ming Dynasty will come with the wind, fully loaded with goods, and leave with fully loaded with silver, sulfur, and Japanese slaves. As the temperature warms up, the trade becomes busy, which makes the coast of Japan, especially the ports, look extremely prosperous. But all this is not without a price.

"General, we seem to have more troubles." Kuroda Xiaogao said with a very strange look on his face, "The Emperor of the Ming Dynasty often calls himself a farmer. It seems to be true now. His Majesty has turned our country into an experimental field. We have encountered a problem, that is, all the ports, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Yokohama, Osaka Bay and other places, have no children."

"People will choose to drown babies, both male and female."

Like the Ming Dynasty, drowning of baby girls was very common due to low productivity. However, due to frequent wars, fertility was no longer a problem because whoever could grab a baby was theirs. Now, the prosperity of the port has made it stable, and more stable marriage relationships are being established, but new problems have emerged.

People no longer drowned baby girls, but instead drowned baby boys and baby girls together.

"Why?" Oda Nobunaga frowned.

Kuroda Xiaogao said helplessly: "Because in these densely populated ports, the cost of raising a child, including food, clothing, education, housing, etc., has become higher. This is a brand new problem. The reason why this problem did not appear in Songjiang Prefecture but in our ports is because Songjiang Prefecture is large enough, and goods from the nine provinces of the Ming Dynasty can be transported through Songjiang Prefecture."

"If you go to these ports, you won't see any children, and those meat eaters don't need the poor coolies to give birth to children, because prosperous and stable ports will have many adults pouring in to supplement the labor force."

Kuroda Kotaka discovered the problem, and the Ming Dynasty turned Japan into a test field. The Ming Dynasty looked at the various problems in Japan, summed up the experience, and solved its own problems. This may have been intentional or unintentional by the Ming Dynasty, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that the problem has arisen.

It is too expensive to have a child, and population siphoning can make up for the lack of labor force. Ultimately, a terrible phenomenon has emerged. At several ports, there are basically no children to be seen.

This problem does not seem to be very serious. If there is no birth at the ports, and Japan is not entirely made up of port cities, birth will naturally occur in the vast rural areas. However, the war has caused turmoil and unrest in the countryside, and the fertility problem has become serious.

Kuroda Xiaogao moved his body and said, "Moreover, the labor remuneration of a craftsman in Songjiang Prefecture can support the food, clothing, housing and transportation of five people, but our Japanese ports lack workshops. Working like a slave for others, a person cannot rest regardless of wind, rain or illness, and can only support himself. For the people of Japan, it is already difficult for them to survive, and children become a burden."

"Obviously, Songjiang Governor Shen Shixing is a very capable person. The labor remuneration guarantee system promoted by the Ming Emperor has well balanced the impact of population concentration on population. In addition, the official factory has official residences, three-level schools, and a pharmacy for the benefit of the people. The craftsmen in the official factory are even more aristocrats among craftsmen. They only need to devote all their energy to production."

Kuroda Kotaka keenly discovered that in densely populated ports and towns, there is a strong correlation between people's desire to reproduce and labor remuneration. Some Ming Dynasty decrees that Kuroda Kotaka had previously been unable to understand were now solved. Only when the labor remuneration of one craftsman is enough for four or more people can the population grow positively.

Even in Songjiang Prefecture, the only decent jobs for women were weaving. If a craftsman's wages could not support himself and his wife, he would not be able to get married. A craftsman's wages could not support four people, so the population would inevitably decline, and having one child was already the limit.

Kuroda Kotaka felt that the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty was extremely wise and had even thought of this kind of problem in advance.

The Ming Dynasty required labor protection, signing labor contracts, tax inspection, and the court supported poor laborers in demanding their own labor remuneration, etc. This series of policies to protect labor remuneration were complicated and all aimed at preventing the population from declining.

If the Ming Emperor Zhu Yijun knew what Kuroda Kotaka was thinking, he would probably laugh out loud. Zhu Yijun was not that far-sighted at all. In many political activities, he took one step at a time. Zhu Yijun just felt that it was only natural for people to get paid for their work.

"Is there any way to solve it?" Oda Nobunaga asked with a sigh.

"No, because of the Baochao, we gave all the silver to the Ming Dynasty. The Baochao issued by the Ming Dynasty was more recognized. In addition, the Nagasaki Governor's Office was very cautious about printing and issuing Baochao. The issuance of Baochao could not even meet the growing demand of port cities, which made the Baochao exceptionally strong. We lacked effective means." Kuroda Kotaka shook his head. First, the daimyos had to be physically eliminated, and then the land was redistributed. Only then would the decrees of the Ming Dynasty's new policy be of reference significance.

"Oh." Oda Nobunaga just sighed. He missed Kanda Shinichi very much. He was a talented person. At the beginning, Kanda Shinichi wanted to print his own banknotes to compete with the Ming Dynasty's banknotes. This policy seemed very good, but later Oda Nobunaga felt that Kanda Shinichi's plan could not be realized.

Because the essence of banknotes is credibility, the Ming Dynasty's banknotes were strong and accepted by the Japanese because of the Ming Dynasty's strong credibility. Even after the war, the Nagasaki Governor-General's Office did not receive the imperial edict requiring it to issue a large number of banknotes to destroy Japan's fragile economy.

Even though the two countries had already gone to war, the Ming court was still very concerned about the safety of the Nagasaki Governor-General's Office and had no intention of putting it in danger.

Judging from the limited space, the Ming Emperor was also dragging his feet and was not trying to end the war so quickly. Instead, he was using the Korean battlefield to wipe out a large number of the Japanese pirates' manpower. Just like in the Battle of Pyongyang, the Ming did not choose to attack the pirates when they were halfway across the river.

After the great victory in Pyongyang, the Ming army seemed to have no plans for further attacks. Instead, they engaged in battles with the Japanese pirates between Pyongyang and Kaesong. The 30,000 soldiers of the Ming capital camp were mainly concentrated in Pyongyang, while on the long front line, it was the cavalry camp that was in action. The Ming army was verifying new tactics and also resolutely implementing the strategy of advancing inch by inch.

In April, the trade winds had changed, and the Ming Dynasty's merchants were waiting for the court's ban. Not only the merchants were waiting, but even the court officials were waiting. The Ming Dynasty opened the ports in the Longqing period and strictly prohibited overseas trade with Japan. The ban was not lifted until the third year of the Wanli period. Until now, in the fourteenth year of the Wanli period, it has only been ten years since merchant ships legally entered Japan.

When everyone thought there would be a ban, the emperor issued an imperial edict that surprised everyone. The edict clearly stated: the sea was open and entry into Japan was allowed, but the ban remained the same and firearms, gunpowder and other items were not allowed to be smuggled into Japan.

In other words, even when the Ming Dynasty was in direct conflict with the Japanese pirates in Korea, it still did not prohibit merchant ships from going to Japan.

"Governor Shen, what does this imperial edict mean?" Sun Kehong, the general manager of Songjiang Ocean Trading Company, became restless upon hearing the news. He ran to the government office to ask Shen Shixing for his understanding of the policy, fearing that he had misunderstood it and turned a profitable business into a life-threatening one.

Shen Shixing said very clearly: "It means exactly what it says. This year will be the same as before. There won't be many changes."

"Why?" Sun Kehong whispered, "Isn't this trade aiding the enemy? Then the scholars and officials in the court will cry out that the goods transported by every ship of Ming merchants will eventually become lead bullets shot at the Ming army."

"If the ban is too strict, the treacherous people will become bandits. What you mean is that the route from Ming Dynasty to Japan is very mature. If it is strictly prohibited, it will breed pirates. It is better to keep it as it is, which will limit the import of gunpowder into Japan." Shen Shixing said with emotion: "In fact, the reason why the ban was not issued in the end was because Ming Dynasty had an absolute commodity advantage."

"We have the advantage in commodities, and it is not a wise decision to impose a ban on Ming merchant ships."

The ban on boats sailing into Japan will not cause much harm to Japan, but it will cause great harm to the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty is actively opening up shipping routes to the New World, but ocean trade faces more challenges. Up to now, the merchant ships of the Ming Dynasty actually have only two routes: one to Japan and the other to Southeast Asia. The two routes are divided into the east and west routes, and the current situation is that the five directions are bustling with merchants.

The ban not only interrupted the inflow of silver, but also hurt the maritime trade with Japan as the destination, and hit the burgeoning handicraft industry and commerce. This was a severe blow to the Ming Dynasty's opening to the sea. If the Ming Dynasty fell into a commodity disadvantage, it would naturally find ways to set limits on maritime trade and protect its own industries. However, the Ming Dynasty now has an absolute commodity advantage. This is another level of war, a trade war.

Shen Shixing said very clearly: "Since the first year of Wanli, the amount of silver flowing into the Ming Dynasty has increased from 490 million silver in the beginning to 650 million silver in the sixth year of Wanli, and then to 1060 million silver last year. The Ming Dynasty cannot interrupt this process because of the war in Korea. The continuous increase in the inflow of silver can effectively promote the development of the hinterland's commodity economy and improve people's livelihood."

Silver has changed from a passive inflow in the past to an active inflow now. In addition to the inflow of silver, the opening of the sea brought countless raw materials. The handicraft industry and commerce of the Ming Dynasty flourished because of the opening of the sea. If the war with Korea hindered or even interrupted this process, it would be a loss for the Ming Dynasty even if it won.

In short, it's all about free trade!

"It is true." Sun Kehong finally felt relieved.

Shen Shixing turned the teacup in his hand and asked, "Boss Sun Shang, you see, the silver is still blocked. There is a dam in the middle, and the silver is blocked here and can't flow down. The people are eagerly waiting for the silver, but they have no water to drink. Your Majesty has come and solved part of this problem by building the Zhejiang East Canal, the Nanhang and Suzhou-Hangzhou highways, but the silver is still blocked."

"Mr. Sun Shang is a businessman. Do you have any good ideas?"

Sun Kehong fell into deep thought. Shen Shixing had been reinstated and was now the Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue and the Governor of Songjiang Prefecture and Zhejiang. He would go to Beijing in a few years and would definitely join the cabinet. So, if this question was not answered carefully, the consequences would be far-reaching.

Sun Kehong half-turned his body and said, "The obstruction of this barrier lake cannot be blown up all at once. Without ditches, the flood water will flood down, not giving people drinking water, but causing a flood. Moreover, people further downstream will still have no water to drink. We also cannot let the obstruction disintegrate by itself under erosion. That will take too long and the people will die of thirst."

"It takes patience to figure out how to irrigate the fields that need water."

"The prescription given by Wang Ci Fu is government-owned factories. With the investment of the imperial treasury as the main source, we can build government-owned factories one by one, and form industrial clusters from the government-owned factories, so that the people can have jobs and get paid for their work. This is one solution."

"The prescription prescribed by the Prime Minister is to survey and return the land. Agriculture comes first. Food is the primary need of the people. In the closed economy of small peasant economy, a large amount of land is abandoned. There is no food, nothing. Letting the people have land to plant is the fundamental solution."

"Your Majesty's solution is to build roads, such as the Wulong Highway, Jingsui Highway, Jingkai Highway, Jingmi Highway, Jiabian Highway, Nanhang Highway, Suzhou-Hangzhou Highway, and the Grand Canal. He also invested heavily in opening up the sea and built various official factories and plantations. This is also to give the people jobs to do, so that they can earn money for their work, have food to eat, and have children. This is also a solution to use work instead of relief."

"Three-pronged approach, three-horse carriage, the greatness of our Ming Dynasty will be just around the corner!"

"But let me tell you, there is still one thing missing from our Ming Dynasty."

"Oh?" Shen Shixing said with a smile, "Then which one is missing?"

Sun Kehong said very seriously: "The three horses led by Your Majesty are the main force for the development of the Ming Dynasty. This main force is large enough, but not sophisticated enough. To be precise, the court is also a collective composed of individuals. In order to avoid being bloated and rigid, the court cannot expand indefinitely. After all, the power of the court is too broad. At this time, private enterprises have their own flexible advantages."

"Governor Shen, I'm just a businessman. I don't know how to prescribe medicine, and I don't have the ability to do so. I just vaguely feel that this is the way to go."

Sun Kehong stated a fact that the Ming Dynasty court was not omnipotent, and in the process of making the Ming Dynasty great again, the main force was still the three horses of the court, but more sophisticated ditches required the joint efforts of all people to complete. In this process, how to give full play to the positive role of the emerging bourgeoisie and restrain its negative effects became an extremely important issue, and even the main contradiction after Shen Shixing entered Beijing.

"Good." Shen Shixing nodded. He agreed with Sun Kehong's words. To make Ming Dynasty great again, everyone in Ming Dynasty needs to work together.

"What does Governor Shen think?" Sun Kehong wanted to find out what Shen Shixing thought.

Shen Shixing said succinctly: "People."

In Shen Shixing's view, the economy is not complicated. In the short term, it depends on policies; in the medium term, it depends on land; and in the long term, it depends on population.

The prosperity of Songjiang Prefecture is naturally due to policies, but now it has gradually come to the point of looking at land. However, in the long run, it must look at population growth, and the same is true for the Ming Dynasty. Shen Shixing only said one word, which can be said to be very frugal with words, but his attitude is already very clear.

"Governor Shen is still the wisest." Sun Kehong bowed his head again. He asked clearly what he wanted to know and chose to leave. Sun Kehong saw the surface, while Shen Shixing saw the essence.

Shen Shixing opened a memorial, which he had been writing for a long time. It contained the summary after he arrived in Songjiang Prefecture. The content had been revised several times, but on the day he returned to Beijing, he would complete his memorial.

Before the first year of the Wanli reign, the Ming Dynasty had already shown signs of systemic collapse. This is not alarmist talk. Behind the civil and military peace and extravagance was the complete collapse of the Ming Dynasty's tax system, the collapse of the in-kind tax that had been implemented for nearly two thousand years.

The total collapse of taxation in kind and the transition to taxation in money is an inevitable process of development, an irresistible historical trend, and the result of the continuous development of productivity;
The Ming Dynasty lacked silver and copper, and had no perfect coinage, which seriously hindered the Ming Dynasty's transformation from a small peasant economy to a commodity economy.
The scarcity of the commodity supply led to excessive concentration of silver, which became a dam and could not be dredged.

These three problems form an unsolvable triangle, and a vicious cycle that aggravates each other. The 14th year of the Wanli Reform was actually a prescription and an answer to this historical turning point. It seems to be effective at present. A vicious cycle was broken by the Ming Dynasty's monarchs and ministers. This historical turning point was a crisis and naturally an opportunity. The Ming Dynasty seized this opportunity and was reborn from the ashes.

However, in Shen Shixing's view, the Wanli Reform was not perfect and needed to be repaired. His memorial was a summary to repair the crises he saw and the dangers that the wise officials in the court had not discovered.

"Sun Kehong is a smart man. He will vote for whatever Your Majesty votes for." Shen Shixing closed the memorial. Sun Kehong always keeps up with the court's pace.

When someone tried to persuade Sun Kehong, he would curse: You poor bastards, do you know how to spend money better than His Majesty? !

Your Majesty is the richest man in the Ming Dynasty, and no one will doubt that. However, Your Majesty's money is owned by the entire Ming Dynasty.

The Emperor of the Ming Dynasty invested 15 million silver coins in Nan Ya, which was mainly collected from military salaries. In order to digest the silver coins, dozens of government-owned factories sprang up near the Longjiang Shipyard in Nan Ya. These government-owned factories were gathering various industries. Among them, there was an industry that took away nearly 1 million silver coins in investment, and that was the Nanjing Mint.

Sun Kehong invested a large sum of money, about 500,000 silver coins, to support the Mint. The Mint needed red copper, but most of the materials from overseas were copper. The copper was processed into red copper and sold to the Mint. This business was generally believed to be unprofitable in the Nan Ya, but Sun Kehong insisted on investing.

The Nanjing Mint had 120 copper furnaces and recruited 6,000 coin-making craftsmen, with 50 craftsmen on each furnace. In order to prevent various problems caused by blind expansion of production, the processing of red copper could only rely on the private sector. The reason why the merchants in the Nan Ya felt that they were not making money was that copper furnaces had to make profits to mint coins, and the price that the official factory paid for red copper was definitely not high.

But Sun Kehong believes that low prices and low profits are not a problem, as long as the quantity is large. As the largest mint in the entire Jiangzuo and Jiangyou areas, its scale will certainly expand, and as long as the quantity is large enough, the profits will be extremely huge.

The information in Shen Shixing's hands showed that Sun Kehong was right again. He was going to make a fortune this time, because one hundred and twenty copper furnaces could only digest six million kilograms of red copper a year, while the amount of red copper flowing in from overseas each year exceeded 11 million kilograms, and was still increasing rapidly. The Ming Dynasty's demand for copper coins was endless, and processing with supplied materials was a long-term business, and the factory would remain even if the people left.

The expansion of the Mint injected new vitality into the southern economy.

Shen Shixing was a little busy as he was also the governor of Zhejiang. Mainly because there were a lot of complicated things going on in Zhejiang. Recently, there was another corruption case involving the East Zhejiang Canal. The construction of the river had just started, but it had already caused such a farce. This case was a bit complicated, and the problem was not corruption, which made Shen Shixing feel a little tricky.

Zhang Ang, the head of the Hangzhou Prefecture Workshop, was not greedy for much, only two hundred taels of silver at most, but the problem was that he used Japanese slaves.

The clerk Zhang Ang ordered everyone to recruit people and pay them 2.5 cents of silver a day for work and food, and another 5 cents for purchasing tools. That is to say, for local servants in the Ming Dynasty, one had to be paid at least 3 cents of silver a day, 2.5 cents for work and food, and 5 cents for renting various tools for work.

Zhang Ang thought it was a bit expensive, so he asked the merchant how much he would give for each Japanese slave per day. The merchant agreed that only one and a half cents of silver would be enough for each Japanese slave per day, which was half the price!
Zhang Ang thought it was a good deal, so he hired a thousand Japanese slaves to the construction site. The maritime merchant gave Zhang Ang two silver notes worth one hundred silver each, and the construction began.

If one thousand more Japanese slaves were used, one thousand less conscripted laborers would be used. The local people of Hangzhou definitely did not agree to this, so they made a scene at the government office. After a while, the scene finally came before Shen Shixing.

In terms of corruption, Zhang Ang's corruption was really not that much, and it fell within the scope of reasonable "engineering losses." However, using Japanese slaves was a bit of an overstep, and to put it in a broader sense, it was tantamount to colluding with the Japanese.

Zhang Ang was also bitter. He wrote a petition of several thousand words to explain the situation. He admitted that he was greedy, but the problem was that he could also take money from the local bosses! The reason why he wanted to use Japanese slaves was because the locals could not be beaten, scolded, or urged, and he was afraid that it would delay the construction of the canal, so he used Japanese slaves.

This is really not Zhang Ang's excuse. In the past, people performed labor service and it was compulsory, so beating and scolding were normal. Now it is conscription and an employment relationship. It is public money and public work. If you are slow, you have to be slow. You can get more money if you are slow. This trend has become a trend after some big bosses secretly joined forces.

Zhang Ang brought in the Japanese slaves for the sake of efficiency and to dig through the channel earlier.

Shen Shixing pondered for a long time and finally decided to report to the court. If it were in the past, Shen Shixing would have handled this small matter himself, but now that the Ming Dynasty and Japan are fighting a bloody battle in the Korean battlefield, he has to be cautious when it comes to matters involving Japan.

On the third day of April, Zhu Yijun received Shen Shixing's memorial. After reading it, he immediately asked Feng Bao, "Have the Japanese slaves used by Zhang Ang been castrated?"

(End of this chapter)