I am Emperor Wanli

Chapter 799: Thoughts Must Be Unified

Pan Yinglong looked around at everyone and said, "The money for this subsidy does not come from normal taxation, but part of it comes from special business taxes on restaurants, brothels, and gambling houses, and part of it comes from lottery revenues from the lottery bureau.

There are 365 days in a year, and the Gyeonggi Football League will be played 320 days. There will be three to four games in a decade, and there will be lottery tickets for every game. The Jingshi Lottery Bureau is very rich.
This is called taking from the people and giving back to the people!"

Many of the ministers in the carriage were well versed in government affairs and knew that the special business tax on restaurants, brothels, and gambling houses mentioned by Pan Yinglong was actually a type of luxury tax.

Ordinary hotels and restaurants are not subject to special business taxes.

Before the Ming Dynasty, there were official prostitutes and private prostitutes. The Wanli New Dynasty first banned official prostitutes: the Jiaofangsi was abolished in the name of benevolent governance.

The criminal officials will be exiled to the frontier, while the women and minors can stay in the interior or return to their hometowns. Of course, if you want to follow the master through thick and thin, I won't stop you.

Private prostitution was also effectively banned.

Zhu Yijun reiterated Emperor Taizu's "instructions" strictly prohibiting the trafficking of civilians into slavery, and conducted a large-scale investigation of brothels and brothels across the country.

When we find private prostitutes, such as Yangzhou Shouma and Datong Xiangu, we first trace their sources.

Some of them were sold into the hell by their families, while others were girls abducted by human traffickers and then resold into the hell by traffickers.

Well, now the court must enforce the ancestral system. This insane and illegal act of selling civilians into slavery must be severely punished.

What, these prostitutes are your daughters?
How could he let his daughter sell her body to earn money? How could he do such an immoral and inhumane thing?

The crime is added to the class!
Anyway, the choice is between beheading and hanging.

Since the first year of the Wanli reign, countless human traffickers, human traffickers, pimps and brothel owners have been killed in various places, and parents who sold their daughters have been severely punished.

Didn’t you say that your family is so poor that you can’t afford to eat, and that you have to sell your daughter to support the family? Well, the court will give you a way to survive. Go to Sanbao Peninsula or Yanzhou to open up wasteland!

Over the course of three or four years, tens of thousands of people were relocated to Sanbao County, Yanzhou Yannan County, and Yanzhong County for this reason.

Zhu Yijun did not issue an explicit edict to prohibit prostitutes from selling silver, because from Taizu to all emperors in the dynasty, prostitutes had never been allowed to stay overnight, and he did not need to repeat it.

The official prostitutes of the Jiaofangsi and the private prostitutes in the brothels only played the piano, sang music, danced, and accompanied customers to drink.

Even so, our ancestors issued decrees many times, strictly prohibiting officials from entering these places. Therefore, the ancestral system and laws of the Ming Dynasty have never recognized the legalization of prostitution.

Why was Chengzu always criticized for what he did to the loyal wives of Jianwen Emperor? Because it was too cruel and violated basic moral principles. Second, it was not legal at all, and Chengzu was just using his imperial power to vent his personal anger.

As a senior civil servant, Zhu Yijun was disgusted by prostitution from the bottom of his heart.

Especially in the current era, official prostitutes and private prostitutes are rarely willing to do so. They are either the wives and daughters of criminals or the wives and daughters of poor families. They often suffer cruel torture, and their lives thereafter are bleak.

Later generations only remember Li Xiangjun, Dong Xiaowan, Liu Rushi and Cheng Yuanyuan, but forgot the tragic fate of thousands of ordinary prostitutes.

There is no such thing as having your own body as your own decision! Once you let go of your own will, most weak people will just become meat on the tables of a few strong ones, and they will have countless ways to make you sell your body voluntarily.

The Ming Dynasty banned prostitution since the Hongwu period. Although Emperor Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty relaxed the ban, officials still insisted on strictly prohibiting prostitution. However, after the Hongzhi period, the civil service group won a great victory and secretly controlled the Ming Dynasty's national affairs. They became complacent and began to ignore the situation.

Zhu Yijun brought out the ancestral system, reiterated the ban on officials, released official prostitutes, and rescued "trafficked" private prostitutes. At the same time, he severely criticized the source of official and private prostitutes.

The backbone of the business is gone, and we can’t ask the madam and the owner to conduct the business themselves.

As a result, brothels were forced to transform, and Ming Dynasty versions of KTVs, nightclubs and other entertainment venues emerged one after another.

The dancing continues, the drinking continues, and the brothels continue to operate as usual. The ladies inside are no longer prostitutes, but singers and dancers who can sing and dance, and write poems and lyrics, providing emotional value for the guests. This is all normal.

As for certain in-depth activities that occur, if they are not caught, they will be considered as romantic affairs. If they are caught, the family members will be asked to pay a fine and come to pick up the person, and the unit will also be notified.

As for officials, if they are caught, they should first recite the official discipline manual. If they are reported, they should report to the Supervisory Office and the Censorate.

The world cannot be black and white, there must be gray areas.

What we and the government need to do is to draw a bottom line with the law and then stick to it.

Even brothels that have undergone such a transformation are still making a fortune and must be heavily taxed in the name of special business taxes.

As for gambling houses, Zhu Yijun knew that this thing could not be stopped, so it was better to take control measures against it. Let it go but control the scale to minimize its impact on society.

All gambling houses must obtain a license.

Not having a license is illegal gambling and the punishment is severe. The sentence will be based on the amount involved, with the minimum penalty being five years of hard labor.

In order to obtain a gambling house license, a series of conditions must be met: pay a certain amount of deposit to the local government; sign a guarantee letter to guarantee that no illegal activities such as fraud, usury, injury, etc. will be carried out in the gambling house; and most importantly, pay taxes according to regulations.

Gambling house licenses are not issued randomly, they must be reported to the Chief Secretary for Justice for approval. Generally, only one license is issued to a county.

This is also a wealthy man who makes a fortune every day.

As for the Lottery Bureau, let alone, other provinces can't even envy it.

With these three companies paying, there will be no problem with the subsidy for Shuntian Prefecture's honeycomb coal project for the benefit of the people.

Zhu Yijun spoke up, "We, the emperor and his subjects, have talked about the construction of railways, the opening of trains, the daily livelihood of the people, and local government affairs. After going around in circles, I want to tell you that the construction of railways is extremely beneficial to the national economy and people's livelihood!

In addition to promoting economic development, it has also brought great help to people’s daily lives.”

For "fundamentalist Confucianists" like Hai Rui, economic development is secondary. They will be happy if you tell them how much benefit it can bring to the people.

Hai Rui and everyone else listened attentively.

"After the Beijing-Luanzhou Railway was completed, coal from Luanzhou was transported from Kaiping to Beijing continuously.

A freight car can carry 50 tons of coal, and a freight train usually has 15 cars, so a trip can carry 750 tons of coal. Ten trips a day means 7,500 tons of coal, and 225,000 tons of coal a month.

Now the price of honeycomb briquettes has dropped to 2.5 cents per piece, and Shuntian Prefecture has cancelled the subsidy. It is entirely these merchants who took the initiative to lower the price. At 2.5 cents per piece, without government subsidies, the merchants can still make money. In May, the Shuntian Prefecture Registration Office received four application reports for the establishment of honeycomb briquettes factories.

Businessmen have a keen sense of profit, and they will only flock in if there is money to be made.

In the past, honeycomb briquettes at 4.5 cents were only a small profit, and 3 cents a piece was a loss, so people were not willing to do it without government subsidies. But now they are willing to do it at 2.5 cents?

Why? "

Hai Rui said quietly, "I understand what the emperor means. With the railway, the transportation cost of coal from Luanzhou to the capital will be reduced by more than half, so the price will naturally come down!"

“Mr. Hai is right.

Trade is about sharing what we have and what we don't have, and mutual benefit. But the most important thing is convenient transportation, otherwise everything is out of the question.

Why is the economy of Jiangnan developing so well? Is it just because the land is fertile?
The dense network of rivers and convenient transportation are also one of the important reasons! Shanghai has access to rivers and seas, so it has become the number one city in the southeast within ten years!"

Zhu Yijun took in everyone's expressions and felt that he needed to attend more classes.

“Let me give you another example.

In the second year of the Wanli reign, the Coal Institute of the Shaofujian developed a process for producing dry distillation gas, which could produce 200 cubic meters of gas from one ton of coal.

The Luanzhou Iron and Steel Plant also developed a three-roller hot cross-rolling piercing equipment and developed seamless steel pipes and iron pipes for gas transportation. After experiments, this gas system was found to be very suitable for lighting.

After learning about this technology, Pan Fengwu planned to lay gas pipelines in the five cities of the capital and build thousands of gas lamps to illuminate Beijing in the dark.

But it hasn’t happened yet, why?
Shortage of coal!

Coal gas must be produced by distillation near the capital, which requires a large amount of coal.

The people don't even have enough honeycomb coal for their own use, so how can they spare the energy to distill coal gas? Now, the gas plant and gas street light system envisioned by Fengwu can start to be built.

I believe that in a few years, everyone will be able to see the five cities of the capital shining as brightly as day! "

Hai Rui looked at Pan Yinglong, who was sitting not far from him, and took the lead in clapping. The others followed suit, and amid the rumbling of the train, warm applause rang out in the carriage.

The applause was for Pan Yinglong and even more for Zhu Yijun.

When the applause gradually died down, Hai Rui sighed, "Your Majesty, I am old.

In the past, I believed that as long as we govern by inaction, let the people farm and weave, and don't impose excessive taxes, they can live a good life.

The new Wanli Dynasty opened a door for his ministers and saw another way forward.

To be in charge of a local area, one must not only take care of people's livelihood, but also learn to engage in economic development. Otherwise, ensuring that the people have enough food and clothing is like a moon in the water and a flower in the fog!

It’s just that the rapid development is too much for me to keep up with. I try my best to catch up, study day and night, but I still can’t keep up with the pace of the times.”

Zhejiang Governor Wang Daokun smiled and said, "Mr. Hai, you are too modest! During your time in Jiangsu, Jiangsu has made rapid progress, and the people of Zhejiang are secretly cursing me and the governor. Look at you, and then look at Mr. Hai next door. Are you ashamed?"

Wen Chun smiled bitterly and said, "Mr. Taihan, Zhejiang is only talking about you behind your back, while the officials and people of Anhui are drawing little paper figures of me behind your back!"

Everybody burst into laughter, and for a moment the carriage was filled with harmony and joy.

Zhu Yijun nodded. It seemed that the ministers present all understood his good intentions.

The new policies of the past four years or so are now in the past, and the key lies in the national policy for the next three years.

In contrast, the national policy in the next three years will be more radical, such as increasing industrial investment and overhauling railways, which will require huge amounts of funds.

The Beijing-Guangzhou Line is 192 kilometers long, with double tracks. It uses heavy rails weighing 45 kilograms per meter and consumed 40,000 tons of high-quality steel, whose value is inestimable.

The construction cost was 6.5 million yen*, an average of 34,000 yen per kilometer.

The Beijing-Qinhuangdao Line is 344 kilometers long, with the same specifications as the Beijing-Gu Line. It consumed 65,000 tons of high-quality steel and cost 10.66 million silver coins, an average of 31,000 silver coins per kilometer.

The Jingqin Line is longer than the Jinggu Line and has four more bridges. Among them, the Luanhe Railway Straight Dual-Use Steel Bridge is currently the largest bridge in the Ming Dynasty. But why is the average construction cost still so cheap?
Firstly, since rail steel and construction steel are produced in Lulong and Yongping, they can be laid in Beijing and Qinhuangdao. There is no need to transport them from the sea to Dagu Port and then lay them along the Beijing-Gu Line.

The shipping cost is saved a lot.

In addition, there were many factories in Luanzhou with 700,000 workers. The propaganda departments of each factory would mobilize the workers every now and then and organize them to use their rest time to do voluntary labor at the railway construction site.

Seven hundred thousand strong laborers took turns to level the land, compact the roadbed, and transport materials. The factories paid for their three meals a day, and the volunteers brought their own dry food and did not ask for any wages!

This saved a lot of expenses.

However, the cost of 17 million yen to build these two railways was not a small sum. It was all thanks to Yang Jinshui's maneuvering that he issued 15 million yen of railway bonds and transferred 2 million yen from the tobacco income of the Shaofujian, which was able to cover the cost.

Subsequent railway construction will require even more money.

Historically, the Jinpu Railway took four years to build and cost 90 million yuan, which is equivalent to approximately 76.5 million taels of silver.

If it is repaired now, it will take at least four to five years and the cost will be around 110 million yen.

Investment is easy, bonds and stocks, it is not a problem to collect them together, but Jinpu needs the support of Shandong, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces in addition to Hebei, involving dozens of counties and countless villages.
If the local government does not do its job, the Jinpu Line will become a bottomless pit, a huge quagmire!

In order to get these radical national policies passed at the court meeting, we must unify our thoughts and deepen our understanding.

He took this group of advisors and court doctors with him on the train to Luanzhou for a meeting, with good intentions.

But it seems that the effect is quite good at present. At least these advisors understand my intentions. No matter whether they agree or disagree in their hearts, they should first understand my intentions.

Continue to give them lessons to unify their thoughts and deepen their understanding!
Zhu Yijun spoke again: "When we were discussing the significance of railways just now, Pan Fengwu mentioned subsidizing projects that benefit the people. What do you think of this, ministers?"

The emperor gave another test?
The ministers looked at each other in bewilderment. The carriage quickly became quiet, with only the sound of banging being heard, which was exceptionally clear!
(End of this chapter)