I, the Ming Dynasty, can still save me

Chapter 437
Early the next morning, Zhu Youxiao got up early under Zhang Yan's service. After breakfast, he went to Qianqing Palace for work.

The good things happened one after another yesterday, coupled with the rest yesterday afternoon, made Zhu Youxiao energetic and in a much better mood.

But as soon as he arrived at the gate of Qianqing Palace, he saw the eunuch Wei Zhongxian waiting for him at the gate with a pile of question books.

As soon as he saw Zhu Youxiao coming, Wei Zhongxian stepped forward quickly, smiled and said to the emperor:
"This slave has come to bring good news to His Majesty again."

When Zhu Youxiao heard this, he immediately became interested and said to him with great interest:
"There have been a lot of good things happening these past few days, please tell me what good things happened."

"It's Sun Yuanhua. Sun Yuanhua's question book was delivered to the General Affairs Department this morning. I remember that Your Majesty said that as long as his question book is given, it will be handed over to you as soon as possible, so it will be sent to you as soon as possible."

Zhu Youxiao thought for a moment after hearing this. Sun Yuanhua had been gone for almost a month and a half.

I remember that when he left, I asked him to write down what he saw and heard along the way at any time, and then send it to me. I didn't expect it to be delivered so quickly.

"According to the time, he has already arrived in Jiangnan. Walk in and talk. I really want to take a good look."

As Zhu Youxiao said this, he led Wei Zhongxian into the Qianqing Palace. After sitting down for a while, he took the question book handed over by Wei Zhongxian and read it carefully.

Wei Zhongxian also knew that Zhu You was very concerned about the content of the review, so he did not dare to disturb him. He just stood aside and served the emperor tea and water, and served him well.

If it was as Zhu Youxiao thought, Sun Yuanhua wrote the inscription when he arrived in Shanghai County, South Zhili. He also wrote down in detail what he saw and heard along the way.

But as far as its content is concerned, it mainly writes about two things.

The first is the speed of sea transportation.

Sun Yuanhua went to sea on September [-]th, but it only took him a little more than half a month to reach Shanghai County, Songjiang Prefecture in early October.Such a fast speed really surprised Sun Yuanhua.

He is originally from Shanghai County, and he has set out from Shanghai County to Beijing before. However, if he takes the canal to go north, it will take more than 20 days at the fastest and about a month at the slowest time. If a cargo ship is caught early, then Even slower.

But sea transportation is much faster. Even freight only takes more than half a month. The time and efficiency are far greater than water transportation.

And in terms of cost, sea transportation only needs to pay taxes when entering and exiting the port. There is no so-called customs tax on the way, so naturally you will not be exploited by tax rates, and the cost will be reduced a lot.

Therefore, Sun Yuanhua strongly praised the convenience of sea transportation in the title book, and also suggested that the emperor try to transport grain to the north, which would save both costs and costs, which can be said to kill two birds with one stone.

Zhu Youxiao's words can naturally understand what Sun Yuanhua means. Currently, water transportation is full of shortcomings. Not only the court is suffering, but also the water workers responsible for water transportation are suffering.

The most important reason is that the cost of water transportation is extremely high. This cost is not only the cost of transporting grain, but also the cost of building water vessels, the cost of transporting grain, the cost of canal maintenance, etc.

Zhu Youxiao was actually very concerned about the issue of water transportation. When he attended the Sutra Banquet, he discussed the cost of water transportation with Sun Chengzong, Ding Shaoshi and others, and also asked the Hanlin Academy to find many textbooks on the disadvantages of water transportation to read.

Now he also has a rough number in mind.

As far as its water ships are concerned, there were many water ships in the Ming Dynasty.However, it cannot be used forever, and a considerable number of watercraft are damaged, burned, and sunk every year, so a large number of new ships need to be built.

According to the records of the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Household Affairs, there are basically about 110 new watercrafts built every year, and the cost of each one is more than 16 taels of silver. It is estimated that the annual cost of building watercrafts alone is [-] More than ten thousand taels or even more.

However, according to the degree of corruption among officials in the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Youxiao has reason to doubt how many of the [-] ships each year can actually be built. Among them, corruption is probably extremely serious.

In fact, this is nothing. What is really big is the cost of transporting grain, including the cost of transporting grain and the salary of grain workers. This cost is extremely high. There is a saying that "every millet brought in costs five times as much stone." That is Going north through the canal, the freight was five times the price of the goods.

However, this cost is not borne by the court, but by the people.Officials will ask people to pay the transportation fee of silver in the process of paying taxes, which is almost half of the tax.

For example, assuming that the amount of grain delivered to Beijing is 300 million shi, the actual amount of grain collected is about 500 to [-] million shi, which is not a small amount of money.

But even this was not enough to pay the wages of the Cao workers. Coupled with the corruption of officials, etc., the Cao workers' monthly rations or wages were often in arrears, which made the military guards miserable and caused the Cao army to flee in large numbers.

In addition, there is also the maintenance of the canal. In order to ensure the safety of canal transportation, the imperial court recruits a large number of civilians to serve in various places every year. The total number is about hundreds of thousands. If you don't want to serve in corvee, you can just whip them. The money obtained from corvee work is about 16 taels a year.

Therefore, the annual cost of water transportation is about 80 million taels to 100 million taels a year, which is actually a bit much.Especially after this money was spent, the situation of water transportation did not get better every year, but continued to deteriorate. However, water transportation has been operating for about 200 years, and the court has formed an inertial dependence. It is really difficult to change it easily.

But no matter how many disadvantages there are in water transportation, it still has some benefits. For example, it does play a great role in the economic development of states and counties along the route, so it cannot be completely denied.

This gave Zhu Youxiao a headache. He had always wanted to reform canal transportation, but the saying that "millions of canal workers depended on their food and clothing, it was absolutely forbidden to abolish canal and reform sea transport" was not an empty talk in the court.

There are so many vested interests in water transportation. If the canal system is suddenly abolished and replaced by sea, it will definitely arouse the dissatisfaction of many people, and it will be bad if a civil uprising breaks out.There were too many factors to consider, and Zhu Youxiao couldn't help but have a headache when he thought about this.

Wei Zhongxian stood aside, watching the emperor pondering over Sun Yuanhua's title book. He did not dare to say anything more, and just handed the newly brewed tea to the emperor.

Zhu Youxiao took the tea cup and drank a little. He just thought about it and felt that he was still too conservative.

We don’t have much time left for us now. If we delay the reform for seven or eight years, it will be even more troublesome.

At that time, the Ming Dynasty's debuff was full, natural disasters and man-made disasters continued, and people's livelihood would probably be more difficult. If it were changed at that time, there might really be a rebellion.

So Zhu Youxiao also figured out that instead of having problems when the time comes, it would be better to start while the situation is still stable. Even if there is a problem, there will be enough time to deal with it.

When Zhu Youxiao thought of this, he asked Wei Zhongxian to bring the Zhu pen.He ticked out all the words about shipping reform in Sun Yuanhua's title book.

We can discuss it with Bi Ziyan, Wang Yingjiao and the others tomorrow, and have a good discussion then.

After keeping the shipping matter in mind, Zhu Youxiao then read on. Compared with the initial suggestions and suggestions, the following content was more about expressing merit to the emperor for one person.

Zhu Youxiao was very familiar with this person. He was Sun Chuanting who he personally appointed.

Before, Sun Chuanting only served as a county magistrate in Henan. Last year, Zhu Youxiao transferred him and Hong Chengchou to Nanzhili to work under Bi Ziyan. After a year of hard work, he was very effective.

Therefore, Zhu Youxiao promoted the two of them again and entrusted them with important tasks.

Among them, Hong Chengchou was sent to Guizhou to serve as the left counselor of the Chief Secretary of Guizhou, in charge of food and salary matters.

Unexpectedly, Zhu Xieyuan praised Hong Chengchou in the title book of his victory.It is said that this man did things in an orderly manner, so that he never had to worry about military pay. Many of his suggestions in his "Six Methods of Governing Guizhou" were even put forward by Hong Chengchou.

Now look at Sun Yuanhua's title book. In it, everyone praises Hong Chengchou, saying that after Sun Chuanting moved to Beijing as a doctor in the Ministry of Household Affairs and took charge of the Customs Department, he collected nearly 20 taels of customs silver in Shanghai County in just two months.

This shocked Zhu Youxiao. He did not expect that the tariff would be such a huge profit. This was only two months of income for one county in Shanghai. Tianjinwei, Denglai, Quanzhou, Guangzhou and other places in the country had so many more than Shanghai County. With a prosperous port, wouldn’t the customs revenue be even greater?

Although Sun Yuanhua also used Sun Chuanting's words to explain that there is a reason for such high income in the past two months, and it may drop in the future, this still makes Zhu Youxiao full of hope for tariff income.

"I didn't expect that Sun Chuanting would be so talented. He would earn so much customs revenue in just two months. I will definitely put him to good use in the future."

As soon as Wei Zhongxian heard the emperor say the name Sun Chuanting, his mind was spinning rapidly, and he instantly remembered who this person was.

The slave girl had also heard about him from people who went to Nanzhili to handle cases in Dongchang before. She said that this person was not afraid of powerful people. When he was a doctor at the Ministry of Household Affairs in Nanjing, he strictly checked the accounts, causing the petty officials in Nanjing to suffer terribly. , privately scolded him as Sun King of Hell. "

When Zhu Youxiao heard this, he immediately laughed.

"Sun Wang, it is enough to see how much the people below hate him. But it is good. The more people like this, the more I want to reuse them. This Customs Department is a newly established yamen, and now it has to be in charge of the national customs. It will definitely Offended many local chief secretaries' offices.

Therefore, ordinary people cannot be used. Only people like Sun Chuanting who are not afraid of offending powerful people are suitable for doing this kind of thing. "

Zhu Youxiao still has great trust in Sun Chuanting's character. After all, this kind of person who dares to reform even the military and villages, but whose family has no money after his death is exactly what Zhu Youxiao needs, and he not only needs it, but also needs to use it vigorously.

But while he was happy, Zhu Youxiao also noticed the problem raised by Sun Yuanhua, which was that overseas pirates were currently raging, but the imperial navy could not exterminate them. If it was not solved in the long run, it would definitely be a big hidden danger.

(End of this chapter)