I am Emperor Wanli

Chapter 147 Zhang Juzheng is very distressed
Zhang Juzheng received a "secret reply" from Zhu Yijun from the Supervisory Office in Jining Prefecture, which was an undisclosed reply to his memorial on the reform of the Shandong horse administration.

He had just returned from paying homage to the great sage Confucius at the Confucius Mansion in Qufu.

This is the practice for local officials taking office in Shandong.

As a rule, the governor, provincial governor, provincial judge, and provincial inspector had to go to the Confucius Mansion in Qufu to pay homage first, just like paying homage at the pier when arriving at any place.

After the worship ceremony was over, he declined the invitation of Duke Yansheng Kong Shangxian, left Qufu and went to Jining Prefecture.

Zhang Juzheng had no problem with the Great Sage and still retained great respect for him, but he had no good feelings towards his descendants, who ran rampant in the countryside of Shandong under the name of Duke Yansheng and the Confucius Mansion.

Jining Prefecture is an important hub on the canal. One of Zhang Juzheng’s duties as governor was to manage the waterway, which refers to the canal’s waterway in Shandong.

The water of the canal in Shandong section comes from the Wei River, Wenshui River, Heshui River and other rivers. The worry is that there will not be enough water. Unlike the river section south of Xuzhou, there is no need to worry about the Yellow River silt depositing in the riverbed every year, or about the canal channel being occupied. There is too much water from the Huai River entering the Yangtze River from Jiangdu, which will cause floods.

We just need to keep an eye on the rainy season every year to make sure the Yellow River does not overflow and burst its banks, and flow through its old course, which would be a disaster.

However, since the founding of the country, a lot of effort has been put into the management of the Yellow River, so there is no need to worry about such things for the time being.

Sitting in the study room in the backyard of the Jining Prefecture government office, Zhang Juzheng read Zhu Yijun's secret reply by candlelight.

At the beginning of the letter, Zhu Yijun agreed to Zhang Juzheng's reform of the Shandong horse administration.

This made him breathe a sigh of relief.

The emperor doesn't care about things now, and the prince can't take care of things either. Without the support of the grandson of the crown prince, Zhang Juzheng knows that he can do nothing.

However, Zhu Yijun did not hesitate to write down in the letter the hidden dangers of Zhang Juzheng's Ma Zheng reform that everyone had agreed on.

The first thing is the horse administration's silver tax. This year, those wealthy and powerful families who have occupied horse farms and divided the population among themselves can be forced to pay in silver.

What about next year and the year after?
These powerful families will definitely pass the blame on to the ordinary people.

Secondly, the majority of the silver from the horse administration policy was borne by the wealthy and powerful families, but a small part was also borne by the horse households, who were kept on the list for show.

Now they are asked to pay silver. They are just ordinary people who grow crops and weave cloth. They only have agricultural products such as grain, cotton and linen. How can they exchange them for silver? Will they still be exploited by merchants and wealthy families?

By analogy, similar Single Whip Laws replaced all corvée and miscellaneous taxes with silver. We must consider where the silver came from for ordinary farmers.

After reading these entries in the secret report, Zhang Juzheng fell into deep thought.

These concerns about Ma's political reforms are very sharp.

His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and his men also knew some of his own ideas. In the process of reform and elimination of malpractices, they tended to adopt the "One Whip" system, that is, to use silver to simplify things and promote reform.

So His Royal Highness the Crown Prince pointed out a very core point: where does the money of ordinary farmers come from?

Yes, it is not easy for them to exchange for a little copper coins, let alone silver. It would be even more difficult.

If this problem is not solved well, it is very likely to be like the Qingmiao Law in Wang Anshi's reform in the early Song Dynasty.

It was originally intended to be a good law to help farmers survive years of disasters and periods of scarcity, but it failed to take into account hidden dangers and loopholes, and turned into an evil law that caused the most severe harm to farmers and the people.

At this time, Zhang Juzheng began to deeply understand what Zhu Yijun often emphasized, the people's livelihood and national affairs.

Regarding people's livelihood, the imperial court not only had to ensure that the people had enough food to eat and warm clothes to wear, but also had to create as many opportunities as possible for them to acquire wealth.

Only when the people have money in their hands can they push forward reforms to simplify national affairs.

Otherwise, the people would have no money and could only pay taxes in cash.

Zhang Juzheng once visited the Taicang warehouse, and saw that apart from grain, silk and cotton cloth, it was basically a grocery store.

Candles, lanterns, umbrellas, incense, wooden basins, dried fish, jerky, dried vegetables, pepper, Sichuan pepper, fragrant wood, cinnamon. Take a walk around and you will find that you are not in Taicang warehouse, but in the South City market.

There was no other way. The local people had no money. Apart from paying the normal land tax with grain, cotton cloth, and silk cocoons, they could only use these miscellaneous things to pay the rest of the miscellaneous taxes.

When the government gets these things, they usually sell them.

However, these things were concentrated in Tongzhou, and even if they were sold off, not only could they not be sold at a high price, they could not be sold at all.

Sometimes there was too much backlog in the warehouse, and the Ministry of Revenue would come up with a perverse idea and use these miscellaneous items at a discount to pay them out to officials in Beijing as salaries.

Carrying a few buckets of rice, holding an umbrella, carrying a wooden basin, and carrying dried fish, he went home.

The lower the rank of an official, the more things he lost, and the more he complained. Li Zhi, who had once been a low-ranking official in Beijing, had a deep understanding of this and hated it.

Because of this broken rule, he was so poor that even his son and daughter starved to death.

Snapped!
The candle flame flickered and exploded.

Pull out Zhang Juzheng, who was deep in thought.

How to do?
If people's livelihood cannot be resolved, national reform will be like water without a source and a tree without roots.

But it is not easy to let the people earn more cash!
Moreover, this was completely contrary to the small peasant economy advocated by Confucianism and established by Emperor Taizu. Small peasant economy was a new term Zhang Juzheng heard from Zhu Yijun.

The general meaning is that the small peasant economy is intensive farming, men farming and women weaving, and self-sufficiency, which completely encloses each family in a frame. If they are in this frame and only need to pay simple rents such as grain, linen and cotton, there is no problem at all.

However, heavy corvee labor, miscellaneous taxes and levies continued to squeeze the labor of ordinary farmers and seriously affected their farming work.

If all these corvée labor, miscellaneous taxes and levies were converted into silver and the government paid for hiring or purchasing people, the people could be rescued from the heavy corvée labor and levies.

It seems like a good thing, but where can ordinary people get the money?

Zhang Juzheng found himself stuck in a dead end, unable to move forward or retreat.

Zhang Juzheng, who was worried, inspected a section of the canal and found with his naked eyes that the canal transport system was plagued by problems such as smuggling, corruption and bribery to an alarming degree.

But from officials and clerks to canal workers and boatmen, everyone is a little fearless.

The grain transport is the lifeline that maintains the capital and the nine border areas, and no problems can go wrong.

The imperial court and the river administration office had to appease them, otherwise, if they gave up, the imperial court would be furious, and the people from the river administration office and government offices at all levels in Shandong would be the ones to bear the brunt of the anger.

These scumbag parasites!
The Ming Dynasty ship is leaking everywhere and is on the verge of collapse.

Zhang Juzheng felt even more annoyed.

Too lazy to look any further, he turned east under the pretext of inspecting the coastal defense and headed straight for Jiaozhou.

Jiaozhou was a direct-controlled prefecture under the jurisdiction of Laizhou. The Navy Bureau and the Shipping Society took a fancy to a village called Qingdao under the Fushanqian Station of Aoshanwei and started large-scale construction there.

When Zhang Juzheng arrived, the place was bustling with activity.

He stood on a small hill and had a clear view of the entire Qingdao Port.

Two men came forward, one wearing a green official robe and a black gauze hat.

One of them was wearing a long shirt, a belt and a straw hat.

"Your humble servant Li Xing pays respect to the governor."

"I, Zhang Kai, pay my respects to the governor."

Zhang Juzheng turned around, stroked his beard and nodded, "Are you two the managers of the Navy Bureau and the Shipping Society here?"

"Yes, Governor. I am Li Xing. I previously worked in the Ministry of Works, specializing in the construction of water forts and sluice gates. Last year, I was transferred to the Construction Department of the Navy Bureau. At the end of the year, I was sent here to specialize in the construction of Qingdao Water Fort."

"To reply to the governor, I am Zhang Kai, the manager of Shunfeng Shipping Company. This time, Yang Gong, the Southeast Office of the Coordination Bureau, came forward to coordinate and called on Shunfeng Shipping Company, Huitong Shipping Company and Dasheng Shipping Company to jointly build the Qingdao Port. I was appointed as the manager."

Zhang Juzheng took it to heart and continued to ask, "Will Qingdao Port be an important port on the Beihai trade route in the future?"

“Yes, Futai, according to the plan of the Navy Bureau, there are currently only four Class A ports north of the Yangtze River, Haizhou, Qingdao, Dengzhou and Dagu.

A-class ports are mainly used for civil and commercial purposes, and can be equipped with a Zhanmeng water fortress. "

"What about Weihai Port?"

"Weihai Port belongs to the Yanfeng military port and is not shared with civilians or merchants. There is only a Class B port nearby."

"Oh, are there any others at the North Road Port?"

"To reply to the governor, the B and C class ports include Yunti Port near the Yellow River, Dongliang Port in Ye County, Laizhou, Hulu Port in Leting, Jingji, Yuguan Port in Shanhaiwei, Tashan Port in Zhongzuo, Ningyuan, Yingkou Port where the Liaohe River flows into the sea, and Jinzhou Port near Jinzhou. There are even more D class ports, all of which are fishing ports and temporary shelters."

Zhang Juzheng's eyes jumped. There are so many ports in Liaodong?
Zhang Juzheng knew about His Royal Highness the Crown Prince's strategic deployment of attacking the east and reconciling the west, as well as his obsession with the northeast.

This is layout.
Zhang Juzheng couldn't say it.

He looked up at the densely packed civilians in the harbor, busy as ants, and wondered, "Where did these civilians come from?"

"To answer the governor's question, they were all recruited from nearby areas. They were provided with three meals a day and were paid between thirty and seventy cents. Li Zaoyan's team gets the same wages and benefits as ours," Zhang Kai replied.

Zhang Juzheng's mind moved, and he realized something. He stroked his beard and said slowly, "Are they all hired?"

"Yes."

“You guys are really rich.”

"To answer the question, we call this cost investment, in order to make more money later."

Zhang Juzheng turned around and stared at Zhang Kai, which made him a little nervous.

"Manager Zhang, tell me how you invested first and then made money."

Zhang Kai calmed down and said, "Yes. I will tell the governor in detail later."

(End of this chapter)