The Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty was extremely rebellious

Chapter 364: The traitor who collaborates with the enemy meets the emperor
After Wanli met with the Korean general Yi Sun-sin, he still did not meet with the Japanese envoys.

Shen Weijing and Xiao Xifei were inexplicably left out for more than half a month.

The capital city is in a scorching heat in August, like a steamer. Even wearing a single layer of clothing makes you sweat.

Shen Weijing and Xiao Xifei were as anxious as ants on a hot pan, running around in circles.

However, Wanli refused to see them.

Wanli just wanted to wait for Li Yuansheng and Yu Zigao and his party to return from Southeast Asia.

At about 5 p.m. that afternoon, as it was getting dark, a navy speedboat quietly arrived at the Taiye Lake in the imperial city without attracting anyone's attention.

Li Yuansheng and Yu Zigao finally returned, accompanied by the navy commander Deng Zilong.

Wanli and Qi Jiguang had been waiting for them in the Grand Council Hall.

After the emperor and his ministers exchanged greetings, Wanli asked impatiently, "How was the harvest this time?"

Li Yuansheng said excitedly, "Your Majesty, the Spanish have taken all the one million pieces of Shu brocade that the Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan brocade commissioner has produced this year. This alone is worth 15 million taels, and the other goods have also been sold for over 15 million taels. This trip has earned us a total of over 30 million taels."

The Spaniards also said that Shu brocade is very good, and the silk woven by Jiangnan weavers is also very good. As long as we have the goods, they want two million pieces next year. Your Majesty, that’s thirty million taels!”

Ugh, the Spanish are so extravagant.

The gold and silver plundered by these guys from America in a year seemed to be worth only 50 to 60 million taels in total, yet they actually used 30 million taels to purchase silks and satins!
To be honest, he would never do this if he were the King of Spain.

If these 30 million taels were used as food and wages, they could recruit more than one million soldiers.

The population of Spain seems to be over 10 million, but their number of troops has never exceeded one million.

There was no way around it. The Spanish aristocracy was used to extravagance. It was rumored that at that time, coffee was worth as much as gold, and those guys drank it every day!
This is seeking death!
It is true that Spain is now the overlord of the sea, and it is also true that they have a huge colonial empire, but this is not their advantage, or rather, they have not used their huge colonial empire to create absolute military advantage.

They used most of the money they plundered from overseas to enjoy themselves!
This is a typical act of seeking death. The European powers without colonies have been jealous of their overseas interests for a long time. They don’t know how to use their huge overseas interests to continuously develop their military power. Sooner or later, they will be united by other European countries, beaten to the ground, and all their interests will be robbed!

Let’s not worry about Spain. Their love of spending money and enjoying a luxurious life is a good thing for the Ming Dynasty.

The Ming Dynasty earned their money and continued to develop its military power, and one day it would replace them as the overlord of the sea.

Wanli thought about it carefully, then asked, "How many pieces of Shu brocade can the Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan Provincial Administration produce each year?"

Uh, didn’t I just say this?
Li Yuansheng said carefully, "Your Majesty, it's one million horses. We took them all to Southeast Asia. The Spanish took them all."

No way?
Even if one acre of land can produce eight kilograms of raw silk, planting more than one million acres of mulberry trees can produce tens of millions of kilograms of raw silk a year.

The Yunnan-Guizhou-Sichuan Branch is extremely large. Let alone more than one million acres, it would be no problem to carve out more than ten million acres of land to plant mulberry trees.

It's the same thing as planting mulberry trees on the hillside. They just need to cut down the original trees for timber and then plant mulberry trees.

There are so many rivers in the Yunnan-Guizhou-Sichuan Regional Administration, and the hillsides on both sides cover an area of ​​tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of acres.

Wanli was quite surprised and said, "The Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan Provincial Administration can't produce so much raw silk, so they sold the raw silk? Didn't I tell you that we won't sell the raw silk anymore, but will make it into silk and satin and then sell it?"

This doesn't seem to be the case.

Li Yuansheng recalled, "My father-in-law seemed to have said that the Yunnan-Guizhou-Sichuan Branch's annual output of 10 million kilograms of raw silk is nothing. The problem is that they don't have enough manpower.

They have to cut down trees, farm, and pick tea, so there aren't many people free to weave. Furthermore, mulberry planting and silkworm rearing also require manpower, so it's already very difficult for them to produce one million pieces of Shu brocade a year."

not enough people?

It seems that the father-in-law Zhang Zhen is not able to make such a big decision on this issue.

Wanli thought about it carefully, and then said decisively: "If they don't have enough manpower, they can find a way to increase the manpower.

For example, felling trees has been going on for a while and it’s almost done. It will definitely get harder as time goes by, and it will be dangerous to cut down big trees in the deep mountains and forests.

Isn't there plenty of timber in Nanyang? They don't need to cut it down. We can go directly to Nanyang to purchase timber for shipbuilding and furniture. Anyway, you won't have much goods when you come back, so it's okay to bring back more timber.

In this way, wouldn’t it save a lot of labor in growing mulberry trees and raising silkworms?
As for weaving Shu brocade, if they really don't have enough manpower, they can set up a weaving factory in the Chongqing area, and then go to Chengdu and other places to recruit people to weave. Anyway, the water transportation there is very developed, so it is very convenient to recruit people.

Tell Zhang Guozhang that if we're short on manpower, we can recruit from other prefectures. In short, Bashu needs to produce 10 million jin of raw silk and 2 million rolls of Shu brocade annually. Don't sell the excess raw silk to anyone else, but to Yuan Gong. I'll have Yuan Gong organize his craftsmen to design more magnificent silks and satins, weave them, and sell them at a higher price.

Also, please note that even if we sell less, the price of silk and satin must not be reduced. If we can't sell all of it, we will store it. We won't reduce the price even if we use it to reward meritorious soldiers."

Li Yuansheng bowed repeatedly and said, "I understand."

Now they have enough money, at least enough to destroy Japan. The next step is to consider how to destroy Japan.

Wanli thought about it carefully, then asked, "Yunqing, how many 1,000-ton and 2,000-ton Fuzhou ships do the navy have now?"

Deng Zilong said without hesitation: "Your Majesty, we now have more than 300 thousand-ton and two thousand-ton ships."

This means that Li Yuansheng's fleet can carry more than one million dan of grain at a time.

Wanli nodded slightly, then said decisively: "Hurry back, while the wind is still blowing from the south, quickly load all the Fu ships with food and pull them to the harbor at the mouth of the Yalu River."

Deng Zilong bowed repeatedly and said, "I understand."

Wanli then gave detailed instructions: "Yuansheng, don't deliver the goods to Japan this time. Take your men and horses with you on a speedboat to Japan and quietly go to Tokugawa Ieyasu to see what goods he needs. No matter what they are, agree to give them to him and tell him that you can deliver them to Edo."

Tokugawa Ieyasu?

Li Yuansheng asked carefully, "Your Majesty, are we going to support Tokugawa Ieyasu as the ruler of Japan?"

Wanli slowly shook his head and said, "We don't support anyone, our goal is to destroy Japan.

This fellow Tokugawa Ieyasu definitely wants to replace Toyotomi Hideyoshi as the ruler of Japan. However, Toyotomi Hideyoshi should be a little stronger than him now. Let's feed him a little bit and let him fight Toyotomi Hideyoshi."

Oh, so it was just a dog-eat-dog situation.

Question: Will Tokugawa Ieyasu bite Toyotomi Hideyoshi?

Li Yuansheng thought about it carefully and said cautiously, "Your Majesty, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu are both old foxes. In the current situation, I don't think they will take advantage of the situation and let us take advantage of it."

Well, you have a really good brain.

Wanli nodded slowly and said, “Under normal circumstances, they will definitely not bite each other, but we can make the situation abnormal.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi is stuck in the quagmire of Korea, his vassal state. He will eventually be defeated. Once he loses, his reputation will plummet. By the way, are the ronin in Japan easy to bribe?

Why are you asking about ronin?

Li Yuansheng nodded repeatedly and said, "The Japanese ronin are basically starving. As long as they can eat enough, they will kill and burn anything. I have hired a lot of ronin over there to run errands and deliver goods."

Wanli shook his head slightly and said, "I don't need them to kill or burn people. I just want them to take our printed materials and throw them everywhere, covering all the cities and even villages in Japan. Is that a problem?"

Compared with murder and arson, this kind of thing is nothing.

Li Yuansheng nodded repeatedly and said, "No problem."

That'll do.

At about noon the next morning, Wanli finally met with the Japanese envoy.

However, he did not arrange any grand ceremony. He just asked two secret guards who were proficient in Japanese to accompany him, and then ordered people to take Shen Weijing and the Japanese envoy to the side hall specially used to receive court officials.

Not long after, the young eunuch brought in a middle-aged man in a Confucian robe and a short Japanese pirate.

It was obvious that this gentle-looking middle-aged man was Shen Weijing.

After walking into the empty hall, this guy's face was full of surprise. It seemed that he felt that receiving the Japanese envoys had to be a bit grand.

Wanli stared at the guy with his eyes slightly narrowed.

How dare you, a traitor and collaborator, come to see the emperor in broad daylight?
Who gave you the courage?

Do you think I dare not chop you down?
There is a way to heaven if you don't go, but there is no way to hell you break in!

(End of this chapter)