People in the Ming Dynasty are lawless

Chapter 715: They are not afraid of the vouchers, but the lights are too bright

The quarrel in Wenhua Hall penetrated the three carved doors. The veins of the hand of the Minister of Revenue bulged as he held the account book. "Give vouchers to farmers all over the world? Minister Chen, do you know how many people there are in the Ming Dynasty?"

"More than 67,280,000 people." Chen Han pushed the abacus in front of the minister. "If we calculate it at 500 wen per household, it will cost about..." He drew a deep mark on the sandalwood table with his fingertips, "23,000,000 taels."

Crown Prince Zhu Biao suddenly knocked on the imperial desk. When everyone was silent, he unfolded a silk map: "In the three months of the pilot project in Songjiang Prefecture, farmers who bought farm tools with coupons increased their production by 20%." Next to the several granaries circled in cinnabar, there were dense annotations saying "Tax grain is sufficient."

"But this note..." The Minister of Industry was hesitant to speak. Chen Han smiled knowingly and took out a hard indigo card from his arms: "The anti-counterfeiting pattern is specially made by the Institute of Physics. The sealing wax is mixed with Liaodong cinnabar, which changes color when it comes into contact with alkali." He suddenly dipped the card into the teacup, and a tiny dark pattern of "Hongwu Tongbao" immediately floated on the water surface.

The old minister wanted to argue, but suddenly the young eunuch rushed in in a panic: "Your Highness, Xuanwu Lake... Xuanwu Lake..." Zhu Biao stood up suddenly: "Is Youwei in trouble?"

"No!" the young eunuch panted, "It's the women workers who wove the cloth... They made it better than all the cloth merchants from Songjiang!"

In the lakeside workshop, Li Zhen was swinging a mace to keep the order. A dozen cloth merchants gathered around the newly released "Women's Satin" sample, and someone exclaimed: "The density of the warp and weft... is 30% denser than Suzhou Song Brocade?"

Zhu Youwei smiled and revealed the secret compartment at the bottom of the spinning wheel: "Everyone, please have a look."

The fine iron gear set clicked and turned under the impetus of the mechanism, and the six wooden shuttles wrapped with silk threads flew like butterflies. "This is the 'self-tightening shuttle' improved by the Physics Institute. Women are not strong enough, so we let the mechanism do the work itself."

The shopkeeper of Songjiang Xu's family suddenly knelt down and said, "Your Highness, I am willing to underwrite three years of production!" He took out the contract with trembling hands and said, "The price... the price is based on the market price of Cantonese colored satin plus 20%!"

Chen Han had been standing behind the crowd without knowing when. Hearing this, he coughed lightly and said, "Manager Xu, did your company deduct 30% of the wages of the female weavers last month?"

The captain behind him immediately unfolded the file, which had more than a dozen bright red handprints on it.

"I know my crime!" Shopkeeper Xu's face turned pale. "I am willing to pay double the wages and donate a hundred looms to atone my sin!"

As the setting sun dyed the lake golden red, Zhu Youwei wrote down the first order in the account book. She suddenly looked up and said, "Husband, about the voucher..."

"The cabinet was in an uproar." Chen Han rubbed his temple with a wry smile, "Fortunately, the old man slammed the purchase order of the Guanglu Temple on the table and said, 'My private treasury can issue it, but the national treasury cannot?'" He imitated Zhu Yuanzhang's accent vividly, making the female workers laugh.

Suddenly, the sound of hurried horse hooves was heard in the distance.

The official of the Eastern Palace dismounted and said, "Prime Minister Chen, Your Highness, please return quickly! Those people from the Ministry of Revenue... they smashed the abacus!"

Zhu Youwei handed the spinning wheel key to Li Zhen: "Husband, I will go with you to meet them."

In the duty room of the Ministry of Revenue, the argument was already heated. The old minister pointed at the "Records of Food and Goods" and roared: "Since ancient times, there has never been a reason to use coupons instead of money!"

"What is the salt permit then?" Zhu Biao asked in a low voice, but the whole room was silent. He pointed at the table with his fingertips, "The salt permit during the Hongwu period was used as money by the people."

The carved wooden door of the Ministry of Revenue's duty room was gently pushed open, and the eunuch's shrill voice was particularly piercing amid the quarrel: "Duke Qian and Princess Jiangdu are here—"

With a "clatter", the "Food and Goods Records" in the hands of the old minister of the Ministry of Industry fell to the ground. When he bent down to pick it up, he caught a glimpse of Zhu Youwei's lilac skirt passing over the blue bricks, and couldn't help muttering in a low voice: "It's not proper for a woman to enter the house..."

"What Lord Li said," Chen Han deliberately stepped on the corner of the book page as he stepped over the threshold, "Last month, when the old lady in your house celebrated her birthday, didn't you specially invite Princess Jiangdu to teach the embroiderers how to weave gold thread?" The old minister's face flushed immediately. The brocade robe embroidered with pine and crane patterns was now on him.

The Minister of Revenue Wang Dun stroked his goatee and sneered, "Duke, vouchers are not comparable to looms. If you let farmers use pieces of paper as money, won't the world be in chaos?" He deliberately emphasized the word "pieces of paper", and several young officials followed suit and sneered.

Zhu Youwei took out a sandalwood box from her sleeve slowly. With a click, three indigo cards appeared in the box, with dark patterns shimmering like water waves under the candlelight.

"Master Wang, please look," she lightly lifted the card with her fingertips, and the top card bounced up half an inch. "This is not an ordinary piece of paper. It is specially made by the School of Physics using birch bark pulp from Liaodong. It does not rot when soaked in water, and leaves marks when burned -" As she spoke, she suddenly passed the card over the candlelight, and the scorch marks revealed the negative text of "Hongwu Tong Bao".

There was a sudden gasp in the duty room. Chen Han took the opportunity to slam the abacus on the table. "In the three months of the pilot project in Songjiang, the yield of the curved plows purchased by farmers with coupons increased by 20%. According to this number..." His fingers left deep marks on the sandalwood table. "If it is implemented nationwide, the autumn tax revenue will be at least this much more."

"Nonsense!" Wang Dun slammed the table and stood up, the wings on his official hat trembling, "What if the farmers use the coupons to exchange for wine? What if the profiteers hoard the goods?"

Suddenly there was a rustling sound outside the door. Everyone turned around and saw five or six farmers in coarse clothes huddled behind the pillars of the porch, with fresh soil in the bamboo baskets at their feet.

The dark-faced man in the lead knelt down and said, "Excuse me, sir. We are vegetable farmers near Xuanwu Lake. I heard that we will be given coupons for farming..."

“How dare you!” Wang Dun’s beard was about to stand up to the sky. “You think you can break into the Ministry of Revenue’s important place?”

Chen Han said, "Your Highness, we brought it with us when we came here. We think it would be fairest to let the common people speak for themselves."

Crown Prince Zhu Biao smiled and waved: "Come in. Old man, if you were to issue a voucher, what would you like to exchange for it?"

The dark-faced man wiped his hands on his collar and said, "Your Highness, if we can replace that iron curved plow..." He gestured, "Scholar Wang in our village said that the new plow can plow eight acres of land a day!"

A sudden laugh came from the corner. The Zhejiang Provincial Censor, wearing a lake blue silk shirt, waved a Xiangfei bamboo fan and said, "Are you a peasant who is not qualified to talk about the economy? You know, if the court issues an extra 23 million strings of silver vouchers, the copper coins on the market will immediately..."

"What should we do?" Zhu Youwei suddenly interrupted. She took out a few Hongwu Tongbao coins with casting marks from her purse and lined them up on the table: "Did the Imperial Censor know that the new batch of coins minted by the Institute of Physics was mixed with Yunnan copper?"

The copper coin with a purple-red sheen spun around on the table, and finally fell to the "one string" with a "ding". The fan of the Zhejiang Provincial Censor froze in mid-air - who didn't know that the Yunnan Copper Mine was managed by his wife's uncle?

"Okay." Zhu Biao tapped the jade paperweight gently. "The back of the voucher will be printed with the purchase limit of farm tools and grains, and it will be stamped with a saddle stamp like the salt voucher." He suddenly turned to the vegetable farmers and said, "If your village receives the vouchers, can you promise not to exchange them for wine?" Before the black-faced man could answer, the little boy with a pigtail combed into his hair suddenly came out from behind him and said, "Of course! My father said that if you exchange them for wine, I'll break your legs!" The childish voice made the whole room laugh, and the old minister's tea sprayed all over the "Food and Goods Records".

Wang Dun still did not give up: "Your Highness, even if it is to be issued, it should be issued by the Ministry of Revenue first..."

"How about the Ministry of Revenue?" Chen Han suddenly flipped open a blue booklet. "Sir, do you remember that when we were measuring the land last year, your brother-in-law was in Jiangxi..."

"Ahem!" Wang Dun's cough almost overturned the beams of the house. "Your Excellency the Duke is right. I suddenly feel that the vouchers are indeed... indeed quite desirable."

Zhu Biao glanced at the "account book" in Chen Han's hand with a smile - it was clearly Zhu Youwei's "Textile Workshop Cookbook".

When the sun was setting in the west, the door of the duty room was pushed open again. Zhu Yuanzhang stood outside the threshold holding his great-grandson, his dark uniform still stained with mud from the vegetable field.

"Did you come to any conclusion from the argument?" The old man pushed his great-grandson, who was chewing his finger, into the prince's arms. "If you ask me, give it away!" He stabbed the ground heavily with his bamboo stick. "When we were fighting Zhang Shicheng, we even issued 'cloth coupons' when we didn't have enough military supplies!"

The whole room was in complete silence. The old minister suddenly realized that the little prince was holding a sample indigo voucher, which was covered with shiny saliva.

“But…” Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly drew out his voice, scaring Wang Dun so much that he dropped the brush he had just picked up. “This coupon needs to have some rules.” He snatched Chen Han’s wolf-hair brush and scribbled on the back of the sample, “Limit the purchase of farm tools and grain seeds. Violators will be punished with twenty strokes of the cane.” The ink was as vivid as a knife or an axe.

Zhu Youwei's eyes lit up: "How about adding 'Women who hold coupons to buy looms will be rewarded with a pair of spindles'?"

"It's settled!" The old man waved his hand, and the great-grandson took the opportunity to spit on his beard. "If anyone keeps nagging, just say it was decided by us!" He pointed the bamboo stick out the window, "Listen to this--"

The evening breeze brought the noise of Xuanwu Lake. The newly composed "Loom Ballad" by the female workers was floating in the wind: "One coupon, two coins, buy an iron plow to plow the fields..."

Wang Dun looked at the happy appearance of the three generations of the monarch and his subjects, and suddenly he felt a pain in his heart from the letter of opposition signed by the Jiangnan gentry in his arms.

The afterglow of the setting sun shone on the bluestone road of Jinling City. Zhu Yuanzhang and his entourage came out of the Ministry of Revenue, followed by a team of plainclothes guards. The old man selling candy figurines on the street had just closed his stall when the bamboo sticks in the basket made a clattering sound, which seemed to set the pace for their conversation.

"If you ask me, these old sour scholars are just stones in the toilet!" Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly kicked the small stone at his feet. The stone hit the bronze trash can at the entrance of the alley, making a crisp sound.

Chen Han brushed off the non-existent dust on his sleeves and said with a smile, "Look, old man, when Minister Wang said that the vouchers would disrupt the market price, he had half a banknote from Songjiang Bank in his sleeve pocket."

Zhu Biao stopped abruptly when he heard this, and the mutton-fat jade pendant on his waist hit the gilded belt. He seemed to remember something: "No wonder the Wang family occupied three more salt warehouses in Yangzhou during the salt permit inspection last year..."

"Benefits!" Chen Han suddenly reached out and caught a sycamore leaf that was falling from the sky. The veins of the leaf looked like gold-plated blood vessels in the sunset. "Last year, the Jiangnan Provincial Administration collected an extra two cents of 'rat and sparrow consumption' for each stone of grain. In fact, not even a mouse in the warehouse was so hungry that it couldn't run."

Zhu Youwei was looking at the newly opened women's clothing store across the street, and turned her head when she heard the words. The golden hairpin in her hair shone with an arc of light: "When I checked the accounts of the workshop, I found that the grease of the loom gears alone was mixed with 30% rapeseed oil by the person in charge."

Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly sneered, scaring the peddler who was eating sesame cakes on the roadside so much that he almost choked. The old man pointed at the upturned eaves of the Ministry of Revenue in the distance and said, "Did you see that? The beast on the roof has a golden bead in its mouth! The budget reported by the Ministry of Works that year said it was made of clay--"

"So the vouchers have affected their interests." Chen Han took the lotus leaf bag handed over by a roadside vendor, which contained steaming sugar-roasted chestnuts. He broke one open, and the golden chestnut flesh looked like a miniature gold ingot. "Farmers can directly exchange their vouchers for farm tools, thus bypassing the layers of exploitative middlemen."

Zhu Youwei suddenly burst out laughing. Everyone followed her gaze and saw several women in shorts pointing and talking around the newly established "farm tool exchange office". One of them was holding an iron hoe that was shining coldly in the sunset.

"Interesting." Zhu Yuanzhang narrowed his eyes. "Last year, the Ministry of Works said that there was a shortage of pig iron. Even the swords and guns in the military camp had to be made with wrought iron."

At this time, there was a jingle from the street corner, and two errand boys from the Street Cleaning Division pushed a modified version of the garbage truck past. The truck bed was clearly classified and stacked with waste paper, swill and coal slag, and the three big red painted characters "City Appearance Order" on the iron sheet were dazzling.

Zhu Biao suddenly grabbed Chen Han's sleeve and said, "I remember you said that the pulp of the vouchers was mixed with water chestnut fibers from Xuanwu Lake?"

"Anti-counterfeiting is only one of the factors." Chen Han took out a voucher and held it towards the setting sun. The watermark on the paper showed a pattern of rice ears. "The key is to ensure that the money actually flows into the hands of those who need it." He pointed to the "City Appearance Order" posted on the outer wall of the school not far away. The ink on it was not yet dry and the newly added clause read: "Those who hold the voucher to purchase farm tools can use it to offset 20% of the tax."

Zhu Youwei suddenly cried out softly. Everyone turned around and saw a half-stomped brush lying next to her embroidered shoes. On the pen holder were small characters engraved: "For use by the Ministry of Revenue to compile records".

"Look!" Zhu Yuanzhang picked up the pen with his toes. "You carved a few words on a three-cent bamboo pole, and you dared to write three cents of silver when you report it!"

A sound of horse hooves approached from afar. It was Zhu Yunhuan and several students from the School of Engineering riding horses. The young man was holding a wooden box in his arms and shouted from a distance: "Grandfather! The gears of the loom we improved..."

"You've come just in time!" Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly clapped his legs and laughed, scaring the sparrows perched on the roadside locust tree so much that they flew up. "Tomorrow morning, let's show those old guys in the Ministry of Works what real 'Ministry of Works-made' is!"

As the dusk deepened, the glass lanterns on the street lit up one after another. Chen Han looked at the relief of "Hongwu Tongbao" on the lampshade and said softly, "In fact, they are not afraid of the vouchers..."

"I'm afraid the lamp is too bright." Zhu Youwei said, and the silver bracelet on her wrist touched the lotus leaf bag containing chestnuts, making a clear sound.

Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly stopped at the entrance of the alley. In the shadows, several Jinyiwei were holding down a fat man in a silk shirt. There were more than a dozen crumpled vouchers scattered around the man's feet.

"Your Majesty, spare my life!" The fat man trembled like a sieve, "I just wanted to try to see if I could imitate it..."

The old man didn't say anything, but bent down to pick up a voucher and gently brushed off the dust on it. The dark pattern of the two words "Hongwu" on the voucher flowed under the light, like a living dragon.

……

(End of this chapter)