Guangzong Yaoming

Chapter 98: Your Majesty is Wise, and the Merchants Have Good Opinions (First Order Request)
Of course, many people will pay attention to the wedding of a new king.

This time the selection was only held near the capital, and although it was held in the name of good governance, it was no secret that the emperor intended to select some new relatives who could be relied upon for assistance in the future.

However, from October to now, not much news has been released.

The reason is that the first phase of this matter only started among the 26 guards of the upper direct line, and it was covered by the inventory of the rosters of the Jinyiwei, the Four Guard Battalions and other upper direct guards.

The ancestral precept of the Ming Dynasty was that concubines should be selected from ordinary and good families, the pros and cons of which are difficult to describe in a few words.

In order to prevent external relatives from causing trouble, except for the first batch at the beginning of the country, all relatives of the emperor were marginalized.

But Zhu Changluo now has a different idea.

Therefore, after the first court meeting, when he met the meritorious officials and then summoned Wang Xun, he was the first to show grace.

"Next year I will select concubines. You will arrange it and don't make it public. Just select from each family and send some to the palace for selection. Next year I will only appoint one queen and two concubines, and one concubine will be chosen from among them."

Wang Xun was extremely surprised. This kind of designated quota in a small range was indeed a targeted favor.

"On behalf of all the shopkeepers, I would like to thank His Majesty the Lord for his grace!"

Zhu Changluo laughed: "The title is inappropriate, there is no need to be so deliberate. What I value is your business ability, but from now on, you must consider the overall situation and know the limits. I have said before that what I want is a new kind of minister, not a servant."

"I am sorry for being rude, Your Majesty, please forgive me."

"Since all the families have chosen you to be the leader, you should take care of this matter. Those who are sent here for selection must also be sensible, well-educated and well-mannered."

"I've made note of it." Wang Xun nodded repeatedly, already beginning to think about which girl would be suitable.

"Let me take a look at your strategies first." Zhu Changluo began to look through them, saying, "It's only been a few days, and you've already come up with a strategy. Although I'm doing this carefully, I've said that this is related to whether you can privately submit to me in the future."

"Your Majesty, how dare we slack off in the face of such a special favor? We have been working day and night to prepare for this strategy. Now that Your Majesty has appointed us to do this, we will simply follow Your Majesty's three instructions and make bold plans."

Zhu Changluo nodded as he watched and fell silent.

Wang Xun was waiting nervously on the side.

With their intelligence, they certainly knew that this "minister" had already been appointed.

The emperor did not want to see whether the strategy they came up with could be carried out word for word, but instead wanted them to give an account of it.

How do they run their own businesses now? Which government offices and officials do they deal with? What are their main businesses? What businesses are they eyeing...

These are what the emperor wants to see.

Since they were able to do business so well that the emperor took notice, their abilities were naturally beyond doubt.

The Changming had a clear mission, and the emperor cared about how to make good use of them, both to make money and to exercise power and manage the civil and military officials under him.

After watching it quietly, Zhu Changluo put it down, looked at Wang Xun meaningfully and said, "You are really brave. How wide is the scope of this Caohe River?"

Wang Xun knelt down and said, "Your Majesty has called all the nobles and relatives together to establish this Changming brand. It is hard to imagine how huge it will be in the future. Since we have been summoned and listened to the teachings of the sage, we already have an idea in our hearts. Since Your Majesty has given us the grace to share the prosperity with the country, I have thought about it and I think that the power must be directed to the south of the Yangtze River. Otherwise, we, the merchants, can only donate some money to the country. How can we be worthy of the grand ambitions of Your Majesty, such an enlightened and holy monarch?"

Zhu Changluo didn't say anything and continued to listen to him.

In order to expand the family business, in addition to the resources accumulated in the past, one's abilities must naturally be good.

These merchants are not necessarily more knowledgeable than the civil officials in the court, it is just that their status is slightly different now and they dare to speak more. He has not yet mentioned the matter related to the Caohe River.

Wang Xun looked down at the carpet and continued, "That's what I thought, so I made a bold plan. After thinking about it, it's all related to the Caohe River. Fortunately, your majesty personally took charge of the plan, so I dared to think about it. Your majesty, please allow me to report it in detail."

"Good. You dare to think of Caohe. I think highly of you again. Please take a seat and talk slowly."

Wang Xun was extremely excited. Knowing that his bet was right, he immediately kowtowed to express his gratitude.

After sitting down nervously, he sorted out his thoughts and said carefully: "I will start with the border pay. Your Majesty, the current nine border pay has increased by more than five times compared to the early years of Jiajing. This is due to the huge increase in recruitment of soldiers. Many of us are traveling back and forth between border towns. I think the abolition of the Sino-Japanese War is the main reason."

Zhu Changluo did not interrupt, giving the person a chance to fully explain.

However, his figure of five times was quite accurate. During the Hongzhi and Zhengtong periods, the border pay was only about 400,000 taels; in the early Jiajing period, it was only about 600,000 taels.

It has gradually increased to the current level of more than 3 million taels. In addition to the increasing proportion of recruiting soldiers, there is also an economic clue.

That was the change from the Kaizhong method to the Zhese method during the Hongzhi period.

"According to the Kaizhong Law, merchants will report their food and grass to the border towns and get warehouse notes. They will exchange them for salt permits and then go to the salt fields to get money. After getting the actual salt, they can trade. In the past, salt administration was related to military affairs in the border towns. If the border towns could have more food delivered, they could give more salary grain and less salary silver. Now it is very different. Since I have been summoned by Your Majesty for the Shanhaiguan incident, I will take Liaodong as an example."

"During the Hongzhi reign, Liaodong still bought grain at a discount. In the early Zhengde reign, the discount was completely changed." Wang Xun gritted his teeth and made up his mind to tell the truth. "During the Hongzhi reign, a stone of grain in Liaodong cost about three to five coins of silver. In the Zhengde reign, it cost at least one tael of silver. Now, it costs more than two taels of silver. In the 37th and 38th years of the Jiajing reign, there were floods in Liaodong, and the price of rice rose to seven or eight taels of silver per stone!"

"Your Majesty, please understand: Among all the garrisons, only Yansui has returned to its original state, while the rest are either in a state of both original and reduced state, or completely reduced state. There are many soldiers and civilians in the border garrisons, and the amount of food delivered to them is decreasing. The price of food is gradually rising, and the soldiers are often underpaid, and after being extorted, it is even more difficult to buy enough food, which is why there are occasional mutinies. The imperial court has to gradually increase its efforts to defend the border, as the border defense is important. I think that in another ten or twenty years, the border pay will have to double."

After listening to this, Zhu Changluo couldn't help but nodded. The Shanxi merchants who often traveled north did have a very accurate view on this issue.

After the border defense situation deteriorated in the late Ming Dynasty, the border pay quickly soared to around 10 million taels.

Wang Xun was encouraged when he saw the emperor nod, and continued boldly: "Now that most of the border towns have been defeated, the salt permit has become the key. At the beginning of the country, only merchants were allowed to trade in the central area. Your Majesty mentioned the internal merchants, so I will talk about the Zhanwoba permit."

"The source of this is still in the time of Emperor Chengzu, who allowed all officials, both high and low, military and civilian, to receive salt without regard to their rank. As a result, nobles, eunuchs, civil and military officials, etc., whether they relied on their power to occupy a position and first packaged some of the grain and grass needed by the border town warehouses; or directly petitioned the emperor to ask for salt, the salt permits they received were often huge. Common people and other ordinary salt merchants were not allowed to pay more than three coins. After the discount, the occupation of the position and the monopoly of the permits became more and more serious, and gradually the term "internal merchants" came into being."

"As domestic merchants became more powerful, financial planning became increasingly difficult. In addition, they could exchange silver for salt permits, so some domestic merchants chose to buy salt permits in large quantities. When financial planning was particularly difficult, salt permits were issued in large quantities, but the salt fields were not necessarily able to use up all of them. Border merchants such as common people would just sell most of the warehouse notes or salt permits they received to domestic merchants, and those water merchants who specialized in market transactions often had to wait for several years before they could receive actual salt. There were even collusion between the salt fields and the outsiders, and some salt was not given to the government, but was sold as private salt to enrich themselves, but it was counted as official salt. There were all kinds of chaos."

Zhu Changluo then spoke: "You saw that I also summoned the nobles and relatives to join Changminghao, so you thought that maybe I wanted to concentrate the salt permits in the hands of the nobles and relatives. Among the salt laws, Huai and Zhejiang are the most important."

"Your Majesty is wise, and I admire you!" Wang Xun said very cautiously, "Let me talk about the grain transport. The Cao River is said to be able to transport only 4 million shi of grain every year, but now the boats are often blocked. How can there be only grain transport ships? There are cargo ships from the north and south, some transporting salt, some transporting grain, cloth, medicinal materials... I dare to say that the 120,000 grain transport ships transporting grain every year carry a lot of other goods."

"...You dare to say that."

"Of course I will tell you everything I know." Wang Xun left the stool and kowtowed again. "Therefore, I and others secretly believe that many of the keys are on the Caohe River. Your Majesty, things are different now than at the beginning of the country. At the beginning of the country, Zhejiang Province and Suzhou, Songjiang and Changzhou paid 10% of the country's land tax, so there was a saying that if Suzhou and Songjiang were well-fed, the world would be satisfied. Now it is Huguang that is well-fed, but the transportation still depends on the Caohe River."

"Your Majesty has asked me to manage Changming for financial reasons. In my humble opinion, the key to the court's financial situation is Caohe nearby and Jiangnan in the distance. Now, we should start with Caohe first, and then we can sort it out a little bit."

Zhu Changluo laughed.

The main reason is naturally that the Jiang Commander-in-Chief Xiangcheng Bo and the Grand Canal Commander-in-Chief Xinjian Bo were also there that day, otherwise how could they dare to think about the Caohe River, and how could they say this "I personally think"?
But it is indeed very smooth to figure out how to make money among smart businessmen.

"You have a good point, and the key lies in these two points." Zhu Changluo asked him to stand up, "But the strategy you came up with is too bold, and not bold enough."

Wang Xun looked at him in astonishment.

(End of this chapter)