I am Emperor Wanli

Chapter 829 I am best at using economic means!
Feng Bao coughed lightly and Zhang Juzheng glanced at him.

Old friend, I know you are worried about me, it's okay. I also know our emperor's temper.

Zhang Juzheng turned to look at Zhu Yijun and decided to speak frankly.

"In the imperial edict issued after the Emperor ascended the throne in the first year of the Wanli reign, the Emperor suspended the recruitment of eunuchs into the Forbidden City. I have been the Emperor's teacher for several years and I know that the Emperor is determined to create a new era and should also create a new civilization.

Bringing eunuchs into the palace is against the moral principles of heaven and humanity. Your Majesty has great ambitions and will not allow this bad practice to continue.

At that time, I knew that the Shaofu Supervisor was a temporary measure taken by the emperor.

The old minister knew that the emperor looked down on those crooked and unskilled people in the cabinet, thinking that they were incapable of doing the job and could not complete the important tasks that the emperor expected. Therefore, he specially appointed the Shaofu Supervisor, appointed Yang Jinshui as the eunuch in charge of the seal, and set up another government office to act at his discretion and focus on promoting business.

Your Majesty, now the world is peaceful and peaceful, and industry and commerce are flourishing. The new productive forces that Your Majesty mentioned are flourishing like the rising sun. The new talents that you have painstakingly cultivated are also gradually being appointed to various positions.

I feel that it is time for us to become one.”

Seeing that Zhu Yijun was silent, Zhang Juzheng said bluntly: "Your Majesty, the position of the Minister of the Household is not the right one after all. It is easy to give people a chance to criticize you. Moreover, the Minister of the Household and the cabinet officials are all from the same school and serve in the same palace. Why should we distinguish between them?

Pan Fengwu is in charge of the Ministry of Personnel and is ordered to exchange officials. This is a good starting point. Your Majesty, why not also take the establishment of Shanghai and Tianjin Stock Exchanges, the official issuance of stocks, and the raising of railway funds as a starting point?"

Zhu Yijun felt that what Zhang Juzheng said made sense.

Previously, because there were too many old-fashioned bureaucrats in the court, whose ways of doing things and thinking were incompatible with his own, he was indeed worried that he would not be able to take on the task of promoting industry and commerce.

Therefore, on the basis of the Donation Bureau, the Shaofujian was expanded and a set of systems and regulations were established.

But as Zhang Juzheng said, having one set of Shaofu Supervisory Office and another set of Cabinet is really a stopgap measure. It is okay to operate them separately for a short period of time, but it is not a long-term solution.

If they continue to operate separately and the Shaofujian continues to develop abnormally in this way, unpredictable consequences will definitely occur.

It would be better to adopt Master Zhang's suggestion and use this cooperation as an opportunity to begin trying to reform the Shaofujian and return some administrative power to the cabinet.

Zhu Yijun made a prompt decision and said, "Master Zhang's suggestion is very good. I have also been thinking about this issue. It is not a long-term solution for the Shaofujian to continue to develop like this.

I have been pondering how to position the Shaofujian in the future, how to gradually return some of the administrative power it has occupied to the cabinet, and how to carry out reasonable reform of it.

This was indeed an opportunity to raise funds for the Jinpu and Jinghan railways, prepare to establish the Shanghai and Tianjin Stock Exchanges, and officially issue stocks.

In this way, a Financial Work Committee was established, temporarily under the name of the Advisory Bureau. Master Zhang could serve as director and Yang Jinshui as deputy director.

It has a secretariat, and the cabinet has selected some officials who are familiar with financial work, and the Shaofujian Financial Bureau has also selected some officials to serve in it.

With the Financial Bureau of the Shaofujian as the backbone, the Ming Bank was established by drawing personnel from the Huijin Bank owned by the Ministry of Revenue and the Wells Fargo Bank owned by the Shaofujian to perform the duties of a central bank.

It is composed of the Regulations Bureau, the Secretariat, the Research Bureau, the Monetary Policy Department, the Financial Management Department, the Payment and Settlement Department, the Audit Department, the Securities Bureau, and the Financial Security and Investigation Bureau.

The Financial Work Committee is responsible for deliberating, deciding, coordinating, and supervising the implementation of Ming Dynasty’s financial work and monetary policy.

Daming Bank is responsible for execution.

The Securities Bureau under the Daming Bank is responsible for the establishment of the stock exchange and the formal issuance of stocks.

Master Zhang, what do you think?

Zhang Juzheng had long understood the political ideas of his "good student" Emperor Wanli.

The emperor clearly divided the decision-making and executive responsibilities and departments.

For example, the Advisory Council is the highest decision-making body for military and national affairs of the Ming Dynasty established by the emperor, and the Cabinet is the highest administrative body of the Ming Dynasty established by him. They must have sufficient decision-making power when exercising administrative power.

But compared with the Advisory Bureau, it is an executive body.

The newly established Financial Work Committee is directly under the Advisory Bureau, which means it is a decision-making body and the top-level design and decision-making body for the Ming Dynasty's financial and monetary strategies.

The emperor then established the Bank of Ming to perform the management responsibilities of the central bank, finance, and derivatives.

The emperor had mentioned the central bank many times before, and Zhang Juzheng also knew that its main responsibilities were to issue currency, provide last-resort lending services to other banks, provide clearing services between other banks, provide financial services to the government, implement monetary policy, and conduct financial supervision.
Previously, the responsibilities of the central bank were assumed by Huijin Bank and Wells Fargo Bank respectively, but the responsibilities were not very clear.

Zhang Juzheng nodded: "Your Majesty is wise. With the development of the Ming Dynasty's economy, industry and commerce will become more prosperous, and the financial industry will develop more rapidly.

The Ming Dynasty's previous rough financial management must be improved.

Your Majesty has established the Financial Work Committee and the Ming Bank to improve financial management from decision-making to execution. I fully agree with this.”

"Okay, the Finance Bureau of the Ministry of Finance will take the lead in this matter, and the Ministry of Revenue, Huijin Bank, and Wells Fargo Bank will cooperate."

"According to the order."

After chatting for a while about railway fundraising and subsequent preparations, Zhang Juzheng remembered an important matter.

"Your Majesty, the Jinpu Railway is planned to start construction this year and be completed within four years. Once completed and open to traffic, the impact on grain transport will be far greater than that on sea transport.

The transport of grain has fallen into decline, and the court must make early preparations and make proper arrangements for the hundreds of thousands of grain transport workers and officials. "

"Master Zhang's reminder is correct. However, the canal transportation was hit by the sea transportation once, and at least half of the canal workers and officials changed jobs, most of them went to factories, and some were assigned to the Agricultural Reclamation Bureau. It was very smooth.

Since it has been through it once, it is not a big deal to let it continue to be impacted and baptized by the market. When the railway is completed, there will be more factories and mines in various places, and more manpower will be needed. Even if there are too many boatmen, there will be a place to go. "

"Your Majesty is wise, I am the one who worried too much."

Zhang Juzheng replied with admiration.

He really admired Zhu Yijun's handling of the grain transport system.

Everyone in the government and the country knew that the thousand-mile canal and hundreds of thousands of canal workers were a huge cancer.

Transporting grain from the south to the capital not only cost millions of taels of silver, but also caused four or five hundred thousand shi of the four million shi of grain to be lost.

If the wind and rain are strong in a certain year, 700,000 to 800,000 stones of water may be washed away.

Even a blind man would know that it must have been corruption.

But you can't investigate yet, because if you do, you will find that someone is instigating the canal workers to cause trouble, and if they do, the canal transportation will come to a standstill.

Imperial family members, civil and military officials, and hundreds of thousands of border troops in the capital were waiting for food to save their lives. A stagnation would be fatal. So everyone in the court and the public knew that the grain transport system was rotten, but no one dared to investigate it.

After the emperor came to power, everyone was waiting to see how he would wield the knife against the grain transport.

However, the emperor sent Wang Yi'e to be the director of the grain transport. After repairing the sluice gates, dredging the river, rectifying the discipline of the grain transport workers, and cracking down on the salt smugglers, he did not take any major actions on the grain transport.

In accordance with the imperial edict, Wang Yi'e divided the canal transport into three sections and continued to operate it in the form of a corporate transport agency, with the essence remaining the same in a new form.

They were all small knives, cutting here and there, unable to hurt the vital parts or touch the soul.

After Wang Yi'e was appointed Governor-General of Huguang, the emperor basically allowed the grain transport to run freely.

The first question is that we should wait until the Yellow River is well managed and the harm it causes to the canal is reduced before carrying out reforms.

The Yellow River has not been cured after thousands of years of treatment, so a thorough reform of the water transport system will be a long way off.

However, at that time Liang Menglong presided over the opening of sea transportation, and a large part of grain and cotton cloth were transported by sea, and the lifeline of the court was no longer blocked by the canal transportation.

When sea transportation was opened, a lot of the canal transportation business was taken away. At the beginning, some people instigated riots, but they were immediately suppressed by officers and soldiers. After a group of people were killed, they behaved themselves on the surface, but secretly they were passive and lazy, and the canal transportation almost stopped.

The imperial court didn't care. With sea transportation as the support, it wouldn't matter if the canal transportation was stopped for a year.

However, the imperial court could bear the suspension of grain transport for a year, but the grain transport workers who had to support their families could not.

If you protest violently and officers and soldiers suppress it, you will lose your head.

The court didn't care about the strike and protest.

Caught between two obstacles, the ones who suffer the most are the Caoding and the interest groups behind them.

But this time, the interest groups supporting the canal transportation were not as strong as those supporting the sea transportation, and they could not threaten the court by stopping the transportation.

The fight failed!

After three or four months of turmoil, many boatmen could no longer bear it and began to look for other ways out. They were recruited by many factories in the southeast.

The rest couldn't bear it anymore and finally became obedient.

After that, maritime transportation developed steadily, the canal transport business became worse and worse, more and more canal workers left, and the remaining ones were struggling to survive.

The interest groups in the canal transport industry were unable to bring benefits to themselves and the workers. They could not make money and could not speak with confidence.

Zhang Juzheng believed that with the opening of the Jinpu Railway, the grain transport would suffer a fatal blow.

The power of hundreds of thousands of grain transport soldiers, one of the biggest cancers of the dynasty and a threat to the imperial court for two hundred years, will naturally disappear.

The emperor is so powerful. He used economic means to completely solve the grain transport problem that had troubled the country for two hundred years in just ten years.

The emperor and his minister chatted for more than an hour, and then Zhang Juzheng said goodbye.

Zhu Yijun stood at the gate of Ziguang Pavilion and watched Feng Bao escort Zhang Juzheng out of Xiyuan.

"Qi Yan, Lord Mingquan and his men have gone out to sea, right?"

"Your Majesty, Lord Liang's Eastern Expedition Command set out from Dagu Port on August 20th. I'm afraid it has reached Dongyu Port by now."

"Dongyu Port. After leaving Dongyu Port, they will set sail and head straight to Taiping Port in Songmen Bay."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Duke Hai and Prince Jian should be entering Henan by now."

Qi Yan thought for a moment and said, "Your Majesty, Lord Hai and Prince Jian took the carriage. According to the itinerary, they should have entered Henan."

"By the way, my uncle has left the capital, right?"

"In reply to the emperor, the young marquis is following Shu Youliang and should have crossed the Lugou River."

“Are the people around him reliable?”

“In reply to the emperor, the four people accompanying the young marquis and Shu Youliang were all personally selected by Envoy Song. They are very capable and experienced.

There are four other people traveling with us, led by Ren Boan, a capable officer of the Pacification Division. "

"Ren Boan? I've heard of his name.

Pan Fengwu handled a major tax evasion case, and he was praised for his achievements in the summary report.

How did he go to Henan? "

"In reply to the emperor, Ren Boan was a capable general of Su Feng, the pacification envoy. He was also used by Wang Butang when he was the governor of Huguang. He made contributions when he pacified Bozhou.

Wang Butang went to Henan to rectify the police department this time, and he specially transferred Ren Boan there. "

"So that's how it is. All right, let my little uncle follow them and have some experience."

At this time, Shu Youliang, Li Xuan, Ren Boan and Yang Guian were panting and sweating on the official road from the capital to Zhuozhou.

Especially Shu Youliang, all you could hear was his wheezing sound, like a century-old bellows.

Li Xuan turned around and said, "Master Shu, you are old, why do you have to do the same as us? When we get to Gujie Post Station ahead, you should just change to a carriage."

Shu Youliang was unconvinced and said, "How can that be! I am in great shape and vigor! I am just letting you guys go."

After saying that, he simply stood up, held the handlebars with both hands, and pedaled with all his strength. Finally, he surpassed Yang Guian and followed closely behind Ren Boan.

Shu Youliang pressed the bell on the handle, and the bell rang, sounding especially clear and crisp.

When the men and women who were working in the fields on both sides of the official road heard the sound, they all straightened their heads and looked at the four people on the official road, their eyes full of surprise and envy.

That’s right, Shu Youliang, Li Xuan, Ren Boan, and Yang Guian were riding bicycles on the official road!

(End of this chapter)