I am Emperor Wanli

Chapter 951 The Pillar of Shame in History

Zhu Yijun spoke.

"Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Nanjing and Huzhou, these two provinces, one state and one capital, can be said to occupy half of the financial and tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty, and are important pillars of the Ming Dynasty's Ministry of Revenue.

There are only 28 scholars in the Advisory Council, and you two provinces, one state, and one capital account for four of them."

That’s right, the governors of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the prefect of Yingtian in Nanjing, and the prefect of Huzhou were all given the title of Advisory Bachelor.

As the highest decision-making advisory body for military and national affairs of the Ming Dynasty, the Advisory Bureau not only discussed and decided on major military and national decisions and strategic plans of the Ming Dynasty, but Zhu Yijun also began to discuss in the Advisory Bureau meetings the candidates for positions such as right vice ministers and right junior ministers of the six ministries and temples of the cabinet, left and right councilors of the provincial government, deputy envoys of the Censorate, and deputy envoys of the military preparations.

Especially now that wired telegraphs are gradually being deployed to various provinces, communication is becoming more convenient. Even if the academicians are thousands of miles away, they can still participate in these important decisions.

With the opening of the railway, most of the academicians and ministers of the imperial court could easily travel to the capital to attend the members' meetings held every six months or annually.

With more and more participation in decision-making, the Advisory Bureau has become more prestigious, and the Advisory Bachelor has become more and more powerful.

Of the twenty-eight scholars, eight were the Right Prime Minister of the Cabinet and the six ministers of the six ministries*, six were the Military Envoys of the Military Government, two were the Ministers of the Taichang Temple and the Honglu Temple in the various temples, two were the Left and Right Censors-in-Chief of the Censorate, and the rest were local officials.

The prefects of Shuntian Prefecture and Luanzhou must be included, and the remaining eight are the Governor-General of the Three Borders, the Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi, the Governor-General of Sichuan, and the Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi.

Then the last four places were occupied by the southeast. It can be imagined how much importance Zhu Yijun attached to the southeast.

There were 224 officials in the imperial court, including the left vice ministers of the six ministries, the left junior ministers of the various temples, all the military envoys of the military government, the envoys of the Xuanhuiyuan, the commanders of the sixteen armies of the army, the commanders of the four fleets and four patrol boats of the navy, the commander of the marine corps, all the governors and provincial governors, as well as the Shaofu Supervisor and all the major industrial and agricultural bureaus. They were divided into some in the east and some in the west, and there were not many left.

In this way, the Left Councillor and the Left Vice-Governor of two provinces and one state in the southeast were both officials of the imperial court.

This further demonstrates Zhu Yijun's emphasis on the southeast.

"The Industrial Management Research Institute divides industry into heavy industry and light industry. The Advisory Bureau, the Court Council, and your Chief Secretary have already organized meetings to study the relevant materials in depth.

Heavy industry is of paramount importance and is the foundation of the Ming Dynasty’s Industrial Revolution.

Shanghai has the Jiangnan Shipbuilding Bureau and Manufacturing Bureau, which are considered heavy industries, but most of their materials were previously transported south from Qinhuangdao.

Now, Xinhui and Zhuhai in Guangdong use sea transportation to gather the Hongji coal mine in Jinghai, iron ore from Qiongya Island and Tianzhu, copper ore from Luzon, and tin and antimony ore from Yanzhou Island to establish the Lingnan Metallurgical Industry Bureau Group.

Now some materials for Shanghai's heavy industry are transported north from Zhuhai."

Zhuhai was previously called Jinghao. After the Lingnan Metallurgical Industry Center was established, people thought Jinghao sounded bad and wanted to ask the emperor to change the name.

Zhu Yijun named the city Zhuhai, which means the place where the Pearl River meets the sea.

The name of the Pearl River comes from a poem by Huang Zuo, a Jinshi from Xiangshan, Guangdong during the Jiajing period: "The Pearl River is misty and emerald, and the brocade stones and beautiful flowers are not easy to come across."

It is said that because there is a Haizhu Stone in Guangzhou, people call the section of the river that flows through Guangzhou and directly into the sea the Pearl River, and the estuary is called the Pearl River Estuary.

Zhu Yijun continued.

"Heavy industry is the foundation of all industries, but light industry is closely related to people's lives. Just now you said that the biggest industries in Jiangsu and Zhejiang are silk and cotton.

The same is true for Shanghai, the leader of the southeast.

At the beginning, the imperial court and the Shaofujian established the Jiangnan Shipbuilding Bureau and the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau in Huzhou to carry out heavy industrial layout. The ultimate goal was to support light industry and domestic and foreign trade represented by the Shanghai Weaving Bureau, Shanghai Textile Bureau, China Merchants Steam Navigation Company, and Ocean Shipping Bureau.

I once said that if the Luanzhou Steel Plant stopped making steel for a month, the people would not feel anything. If the Huzhou Cotton Cloth Plant stopped making cloth for a month, the people would feel that the price of cotton cloth had skyrocketed, and they would not be able to afford clothes, and they would suddenly feel that the people were in dire straits.

Therefore, in the minds of me and the court, the four major heavy industrial centers of Luanzhou, Zhuhai, Taiyuan and Shenyang are very important, but in the hearts of the people, Shanghai, Tianjin, Suzhou and Ningbo are the most important to them. "

The ministers were listening quietly. They knew that this was related to the development direction of the southeast in the next ten years. Whether they could make further progress in their careers depended on whether they could keep up with the emperor's footsteps.

"Before that, everything was managed and led by the Shaofujian, assisted by the Taifujian. During the Wanli period, after the New Deal reform, private enterprises in Jiangsu and Zhejiang flourished, especially in the four major light industries of silk, cotton, tea and porcelain.

You have also heard the introduction of Longtan Gong and Li Yunying (Li E). It is amazing how high their proportion is.

The fact that private enterprises accounted for such a high proportion in the southeastern light industry made many people in the imperial court in Beijing feel uneasy. They submitted petitions requesting that the disorderly development of private enterprises and their disruption of the market be stopped.

The Imperial Household Department, the Ministry of Revenue, and the Hanlin Academy organized many seminars and reached a unanimous view that it was a bad thing for private enterprises to enter light industrial enterprises.

They believed that these merchants and factory owners were cunning and greedy, and that their products were of poor quality, cheating the people of their money and evading the government's taxes.
There are many charges, and they are not small ones."

Yang Lingde, Ye Mengxiong, Lin Zeyou, Li E, and Zhao Guancai looked at each other.

The people who criticized private enterprises mentioned by the emperor were not only in the imperial court, but also in the southeast. Among them, a group of celebrities headed by Wang Shizhen were the most fierce. They believed that allowing private enterprises to enter the light industry was simply a "disorderly politics" that would bring disaster to the country and the people.

They cited some counterfeit and shoddy products produced by private enterprises as an example, criticized them severely, and strongly demanded that the provincial governments of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai crack down on these private enterprises.

They echoed some people in the court, bringing great pressure to Yang Lingde and other officials in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai.

Yang Lingde and others certainly support the development of private enterprises because these private enterprises provide a large amount of tax revenue, allowing the economies of the three places to flourish.

Economy is the foundation of politics. If the economies of the three regions develop well and the taxes paid are high, the political influence of the leaders of the three regions will rise.

Yang Lingde and others knew this very well, so how could they possibly clip their own wings?

With their efforts and the support of Cai Maochun, Wang Daokun and other former officials in charge of the three places who were transferred back to the capital, although the storm was loud, it did not affect the economic operation of the three places.

Now that he heard Zhu Yijun put this topic on the table, he felt very nervous and wanted to know the emperor's attitude.

Although they knew that the emperor would most likely support it, everyone felt uneasy until the decision was made and the emperor said it out loud.

Zhu Yijun continued.

"These people are very interesting. They used to submit memorials saying that the imperial court's interference in industry and commerce and the increase in commercial taxes were competing with the people for profits, and they wanted the imperial court to adopt a policy of non-intervention.

Now that private enterprises are booming, they have submitted memorials to the court, saying that this is a chaotic government and asking them to impose strict controls to avoid harming the people.

They are ghosts and they are humans. How can they say completely different things in different periods of time? I was very surprised, but later I figured it out.

Previously, those industrial and commercial businesses had close relations with them and were their purse strings, so the court’s imposition of commercial taxes was to compete with the people for profits. However, the people referred to were not the common people as we think of them, but them.

These now flourishing private enterprises have nothing to do with them, so they are saying that they are making inferior products and selling fakes, which harms the people, and they ask the court to ban them.”

Zhu Yijun sighed, "So, where you sit determines what you say.

I think the reason why these so-called famous scholars have been left far behind by the tide of the times since the Wanli period is that they have not been sitting on the right place all along.

They never care about ordinary people, nor do they empathize with the suffering of the nation and the suffering of the world.

They only love themselves and their family.

As long as I can be rich and prosperous, and my family can be passed down for thousands of years, what does the country matter? What does it matter if China sinks? What does it matter if dynasties change? "

Zhu Yijun's tone became increasingly severe.

“When the country was first established, Emperor Taizu invited famous scholars from Jiangnan to participate in the sacred mission of expelling the Tartars and restoring China, and then invited them to participate in the construction of the Ming Dynasty and the restoration of people’s livelihood.

Most of these famous scholars proudly refused, and even wrote poems and articles to recall the kindness of the former Yuan court to express their aspirations.

What is this? 'Since Emperor Shizu unified the country during the Yuan Dynasty, the country has been peaceful for sixty or seventy years, with light punishments and low taxes, and the use of weapons is rare; the living are well cared for, and the dead are buried; travelers can stay at home even if they are thousands of miles away. This is truly a prosperous time.'

Even now, some people still secretly say in privately printed pamphlets that the taxes imposed on the people during the Yuan Dynasty were the lightest!
What kindness has Bao Yuan done that is worth remembering?
The Yuan Dynasty Code stipulated that if a Mongolian killed a Han or southerner, he would only need to be caned 57 times and pay silver to the family of the deceased for cremation and burial. On the contrary, if a Mongolian was beaten to death, he would be sentenced to death, and the property of the criminal would be confiscated, and the rest of the people would be required to pay silver for cremation and burial.

In April of the third year of the Zhiyuan Period (1337), the Yuan Dynasty issued a decree prohibiting Han people and southerners from carrying any weapons.
"The Yuan Dynasty treated the Han people and southerners like pigs and dogs, but these famous scholars in Jiangnan still wanted to recall and praise the kindness of the previous dynasty and were unwilling to come out and contribute to the Ming Dynasty and the country. Why?"

All the ministers looked at each other.

They just know that these things happen, but they haven't really studied why they happen.

"The pre-Yuan Dynasty implemented a tax farming system in the Central Plains and Jiangnan. The Mongols stipulated how much tax to collect in a certain place each year, and then farmed the tax to the local tyrants in the Central Plains and the aristocratic families in Jiangnan.

After the full amount was paid, the Mongols didn't care how much the powerful and wealthy families collected from the people.

As a result, these powerful families levied heavy taxes and levied heavy taxes with impunity.

They are rich and prosperous, but the people are worse than pigs and dogs.

No matter how much money and grain they collected from the people, the Mongols only asked them to pay less than half of the taxes of the former Song Dynasty, so they were grateful and sang praises from the bottom of their hearts.

Taizu led his troops to the north to fight against the violent Yuan forces in Central Plains, Shandong, Hebei and other places, most of which were armed forces of local powerful people.

In the south of the Yangtze River, these self-proclaimed noble and virtuous people from aristocratic families proudly wrote poems and essays to commemorate the kindness of the violent Yuan Dynasty!
What is "light taxes and sufficient food and clothing, sufficient food and clothing and singing. Yuan Zhen Da De Qian Yuan Xiang, great literature opened up, the world is wide."

How shameless!
When I read these words, I couldn't help but wonder, how could there be such shameless people in the world?
Later, I saw the mystery from another sentence of theirs.

'Born in a family of great power, and flourishing in a time of prosperity.'

"These scum of the nation, because they come from a family of nobles, lament that this period of crisis for the Chinese nation and Chinese civilization is their time of prosperity!"

Zhu Yijun shouted angrily and rudely, and the meeting place fell into silence.

Everyone was startled, and some people with quick minds suddenly realized something.

Why among the emperor's entourage, in addition to Rudong Gong, Pan Fengwu and Hu Rugong who are in charge of agriculture, economic construction and industrial planning, there is also Fengpan Gong, the director of the Civilization Construction Steering Committee?

The emperor's southern tour this time will not only focus on economic construction, but also on civilization construction. Both the economy and civilization must be grasped at the same time, and both must be strong.

Now I take this opportunity to start blowing the wind.

Sure enough, Zhu Yijun's next words made more people understand.

"I have called the Civilization Construction Steering Committee to convene the Hanlin Academy and the National History Museum, as well as professors from the School of Literature at Peking University, to sort out the powerful families in the Central Plains who assisted the tyrant in the early years of the country, and the famous families in the south of the Yangtze River who were accomplices to the evil.

All the bad things they did against the royal army and the poems they wrote to commemorate the kindness of the violent Yuan Dynasty should be compiled one by one and made into a series. Widely publicize them in newspapers so that the world and future generations can see the ugly behavior of these people!
Look carefully at these people who are called moral gentlemen and heroes of the time, but are actually a group of selfish hypocrites with no national integrity. They are real villains!

They are the sinners of the Chinese nation!"

That’s right, these people were negative examples and stepping stones for Zhu Yijun to build the Chinese nation, shape national consciousness, and consolidate national unity.

Zhu Yijun continued: "The Chinese nation carries the Chinese civilization and has lasted for 5,000 years. It has been defeated but never perished.

They have risen from the ruins and pools of blood time and time again because national heroes have emerged one after another among them.

Meng Tian, ​​Wei Qing, Huo Qubing, Zhang Qian, Su Wu, Chen Tang, Ban Chao, Zu Ti, Li Jing, Li Ji, Guo Ziyi, Zong Ze, Li Gang, Yue Fei, Han Shizhong, Xin Qiji, Wen Tianxiang, Lu Xiufu, Zhang Shijie, Xu Da, Chang Yuchun, Yu Qian, Hu Zongxian"

Zhu Yijun mentioned one name after another, "When the Chinese nation was in danger of extinction, they stepped forward and sacrificed their lives to save the Chinese nation time and time again, saving the Chinese civilization from collapse.

They are heroes of the Chinese nation and should be remembered by the world and future generations.

There are heroes, but there are also villains. Those who sold out their nation for personal gain should be nailed to the pillar of shame in history forever, leaving a bad reputation for eternity and serving as a warning to others!

Lord Fengpan, this is your duty, so hurry up."

Zhang Siwei immediately responded loudly: "I obey your order!"

But I was very proud of myself.

Wang Fengzhou, you old boy better behave yourself, otherwise I will nail you to the pillar of shame in history!

(End of this chapter)