Autumn of the 17th year of Chongzhen

Chapter 1323 Food Crisis
In 1657 AD, the Ming Dynasty ruled for eight years.

The Ming Dynasty signed a loan agreement with Japan, and the Wude borrowed 500 million silver dollars to the Edo shogunate. However, the Ming Dynasty needed to send officials to supervise the use of these silver dollars by the shogunate, so that the shogunate could use most of the money to stabilize Japanese society and suppress In rebellion, avoid the extravagance and waste of silver dollars of the Edo shogunate.

From the perspective of the interests of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty did not want the Edo shogunate to collapse. From the perspective of Wang Yan’s personal interests, he did not want the idea of ​​respecting the king and falling the curtain proposed by the Japanese low-level samurai to spread to the Ming Dynasty, so he sincerely hoped that Edo The shogunate was able to suppress the tide of downfall.

During the Hongguang Dynasty, the annual income of the Ming Dynasty was only 500 million taels. Now it is not a small amount to borrow 500 million silver dollars from Japan at a time. Wude also worried that the Edo shogunate would spend the money recklessly, so the supervision of loans, It is inevitable.

This kind of supervision actually includes many aspects, including the purpose of borrowing, and also includes the financial monitoring of the shogunate to ensure that the shogunate has financial stability and the ability to repay.

This means that to a certain extent, the Ming Dynasty has intervened in the finances and affairs of the Edo Shogunate.

After the loan agreement was confirmed, the first batch of silver dollars was shipped out to sea. At the same time, Jin Yiwei of the Ming Dynasty also received a sum of silver dollars for activities in Japan, buying some prestigious Japanese, and began to promote Han culture and the Ming Dynasty. .

Affected by this incident, Wang Yan felt that this strategy could also be implemented in other regions.

Not long after, Wang Yan made inferences and gave Jin Yiwei an additional 100 million silver dollars for this kind of publicity.

After Jin Yiwei got the funds, he acted quickly. In North Korea, the three countries of Guangnan, and all over Nanyang, there were local figures who took Jin Yiwei's money and specially praised Ming Dynasty and Han culture, and were picky and critical of their own culture.

If North Korea is the most Sinicized vassal, it calls itself "Little China", but this is not enough. North Korea's Sinicization is not thorough. Soon, some North Korean officials began to criticize the Yanwen created by King Sejong.

This Yanben was originally intended to allow Koreans to learn Chinese characters better, but it is also a language after all.

If one day Korean nationalism rises, then Yanwen's original role and purpose may change, and it will instead become a tool for de-Sinicization, weighing pros and cons, and this is also within the scope of the attack.

Wang Yan is willing to spend so much money to do this, to make people promote Han culture and belittle surrounding cultures, just to make the entire East Asian region feel Sinicized.

It is not easy to achieve this. It may take more than a hundred years for them to be completely Sinicized, and there may be repeated declines in the Ming Dynasty's strength in the middle, but once it is done, it will undoubtedly complete the great expansion of civilization.

This is very difficult, but fortunately, the Ming Dynasty was strong in both culture and force, and it is an example for other countries to learn from, so it is still possible to accomplish this.

Thorough Sinicization is not easy, but as long as the initial results come out, the Ming Dynasty will be able to form a huge cultural attraction, and use the yearning and admiration of Ming culture from other countries to firmly attract them to the side, so that Ming can be firmly established in East Asia The throne in the center, and this point, Wang Yan should be able to see it if he lived a little longer.

From the perspective of the pattern, the struggle among East Asian countries will only benefit Europa, and it will also allow them to take advantage of the situation and support several countries to contain Ming Dynasty. If the Ming Dynasty can integrate the power of the surrounding countries, then the power of the Ming Dynasty and The influence will quickly radiate outward, and it is impossible to be restrained by any force.

When Wang Yan was laying out his long-term cultural strategy, the Ming Dynasty finally made a move for Jin, which was competing with Ming for the supremacy of East Asia.

In 1657, at the beginning of September of the tenth year of Jin Yongzhang.

Since the beginning of the ninth year of Yongzhang, the price of cotton and cotton cloth in Jinguo has soared for a year and a half.

At this time, the income of an acre of cotton field was about three times that of a wheat field. There was a wave of crazy cotton farming in Jin Kingdom, and the number of textile workshops near Chang'an also exploded by more than two times.

Although the Kingdom of Jin exercised some control over cotton planting, this control was ineffective due to the structure of the court and regime of the Kingdom of Jin.

Under normal circumstances, if you can earn [-]% more income, people will already be tempted; if you earn [-]% more income, people will flock to it; The income, the law is not a matter.Now that the income has increased by three times, the people of the Kingdom of Jin, from the rich to the common people, have gone crazy.

Although the court of the Kingdom of Jin ordered that the cotton fields in each county should not exceed [-]% of the wheat fields, and that the top-notch good fields were not allowed to grow cotton, but in fact, the court of the Kingdom of Jin could not control those big clans, warlords from all over the country, and even ordinary people. Take the risk of growing cotton.

They earned money from growing cotton and paid taxes on growing wheat. The local governments colluded with local big clans, and as long as they paid taxes, they didn't care too much.

The counties reported to the court of the Kingdom of Jin that [-]% of the cotton and [-]% of the wheat were in the county, but in fact the size of the cotton fields had already exceeded [-]%.

This was originally seamless, and the Jin Kingdom court in Chang'an couldn't find any problems from the accounts.

However, in September, when it was time to pay the autumn grain, the domestic grain price in the Kingdom of Jin doubled, which attracted the attention of Yu Yin, Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs.

In Yu Yin's view, although a large area of ​​the Guanzhong Plain has been converted to wheat and cotton, as corn and sweet potatoes have begun to be promoted in the Kingdom of Jin, the area of ​​arable dry land in the Kingdom of Jin has increased, and the production of corn and sweet potatoes can fully make up for it. After planting cotton, there is a shortage of food. The price of food should be maintained at a stable level. But now when it is time to pay the food, the food has doubled in one fell swoop, which means that the food has decreased, which is not normal.

As the Minister of the Household Department, Yu Yin is very clear about the yield per mu of wheat, corn, and sweet potatoes in the Kingdom of Jin, as well as the area of ​​paddy fields, dry fields, upper fields, and lower fields in the Kingdom of Jin.

With the data on the number of acres recorded by the household department, he was able to roughly calculate the change in grain production in the Kingdom of Jin. The obtained data indicated that the grain production should be the same as last year.

At first, Yu Yin thought that the Ministry of Households made a mistake. If so, the Jin Dynasty court should adjust the policy and increase the planting area of ​​wheat fields. However, he asked the officials of the Ministry of Households to recalculate the number, but found that it was not counted. Wrong, the grain output should be the same as last year.

This made Yu Yin suspicious, and made people go down to investigate, and it didn't take long to know the reason.

It turned out that some large households had designated fields for growing wheat and also planted cotton. When it was time to pay autumn grain, they bought grain from the market to pay for autumn grain, which naturally caused the price of grain to rise.

For them, even if the price of grain doubles, they will still make a fortune compared to the triple price of cotton.

The aristocratic family and warlord politics of the Kingdom of Jin made these people powerful in the local area, and the tax and food collected by the imperial court were not small anyway, so Yu Yin didn't find any problems.

Lintong County, more than 200 miles east of Chang'an, is located on the south bank of the Weihe River, on the fertile Weihe Plain, with tens of thousands of hectares of fertile land. He, Weinan and Xianyang are the three counties with the most grain produced in Jin.

At the end of September, Hauge led several officials, escorted by cavalry, along the Wei River to Lintong County.

The Guanzhong area lacks water sources as a whole, but the Guanzhong Plain, where the Weihe River system flows, still has sufficient water sources, which is second only to the Hanzhong Basin.

Hauge rode a horse and stood on the bank of the Weihe River, which runs through the Guanzhong Plain like a jade belt. At intervals along the bank of the river, there is a tall waterwheel standing on the bank like a Ferris wheel of later generations.

This shows the achievements of Jin Guo's ten-year governance of Guanzhong and the well-developed water conservancy facilities. However, Hauge's attention is not on the waterwheel and the Weihe River, but his eyes are on the land on the south bank of the Weihe River.

Counting the time, at this season, the south bank of the Weihe River should be a golden wheat field. What catches the eye is the waves of wheat that fluctuate with the autumn wind, and what enters the nose is the fragrance of wheat, but what enters the eyes of Hao Ge and others is the cotton field. .

Seeing this scene, Hauge couldn't help shaking his horse a few times, and Yu Yin behind was afraid that he would fall off the horse in anger.

"Whose field is this, I'm going to kill him!" Hauge stabilized his body, pointing his horsewhip at the thousand hectares of cotton field in the distance, his eyes popped out in anger.

Cotton has less requirements for water sources. It is located on the edge of the Wei River, and it is easy to obtain water sources. It must be the wheat fields planned by the Kingdom of Jin, but they are all planted with cotton.

Such a good field is used to grow cotton, so there is no need to talk about other fields.

The BMW that Hauge was sitting on seemed to feel his anger, and it spun restlessly. Yu Yin sighed, held the whip and bowed his hands and said: "Your Majesty, according to my investigation, this area belongs to Kong Xiangguo. In addition to the fields of King Yongping and Han Xiangguo, most of them grow cotton!"

Hauge's face turned red when he heard the words. Kong Wenkui is a bachelor, he can't kill them easily, and people like Meng Qiaofang and Han Chaoxuan also have cotton in their fields, so he can't deal with it at all...
Yu Yin said, "Your Majesty, Prime Minister Kong may not know about this matter. I found out that it was Prime Minister Kong's family members who colluded with the county magistrate and took all the cotton. They asked the people to grow wheat, but the people refused to accept it. They all secretly planted cotton."

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(End of this chapter)