Autumn of the 17th year of Chongzhen

Chapter 866
At the end of August, in Nanjing City, Wang Yan recalled You Youlun, the right servant of the Ministry of Officials who was responsible for helping the victims in Jiangbei and arranging to move to Taiwan.

He is a student of He Tengjiao, and he has achieved good results in helping the victims in Wuchang and building Wuchang. Not to mention the highest tax payment in Wuchang, it is more than double that of his predecessor.

It is difficult for the central court to know the specific situation of local officials, so promotion is mainly based on political achievements, population and tax growth.

You Youlun has outstanding political achievements, so he is naturally promoted, and his position is taken over by Zhao Renji, an old friend of Uncle Wang Yan, a Jinshi during the Chongzhen period.

In the cabinet council hall, Wang Yan was seated in the middle hall, five senior officials were seated in the inner hall, You Youlun was seated at the end, and outside the hollowed-out pear wood partition, several officials who were to be questioned were sitting upright, waiting to be summoned.

"Your Highness, the cabinet members, the situation in Jiangbei is basically stable now. Every day, boats from Fujian and Guangdong come to Jiangbei to pick up refugees, and then transport them to Taiwan and Champa." You Youlun said to several people.

Wang Yan nodded. The refugee problem has been dragging on for more than half a year, and it is time to solve it.

"How about the preparations for resettlement in the two places?"

You Youlun smiled, "Taiwan is less prepared, but Champa has already made preparations. Since the beginning of the year, Champa has been waiting for the refugees to pass by, and it has been waiting until now. Many companies in Guangnan, They all took the initiative to send ships over to help the imperial court transport the 20 refugees distributed to Champa, and the transport has been completed before the officials return to Beijing, but Taiwan’s action is a bit slower, and it will probably be completed in mid-September.”

Listening to You Youlun's words, Wang Yan smiled, and said to Wang Fuzhi: "It seems that the Ministry of Households' reform of business names has achieved results!"

"In the development of commerce, the gentry and the people will inevitably pursue profits. This year, the price of cotton is high, so they flock to plant cotton. The price of mulberry silk is high, and all of them are replanted with mulberry seedlings, which makes the rice fields less and less. , the folks will also secretly replant, and there is no way to stop them, so they can only start with these companies that have made a lot of money. The Ministry of Households issued a rule that all companies that want to do maritime trade must help the court to collect a batch of grain Come over, and then the Shibo Division will give the merchants a share of the trade based on the proof of grain harvest. This forces the merchants to look for grain everywhere, and the people in the interior are reducing their grain production. The cost of growing grain is high and the income is low, so they are forced to These sea merchants bought a lot of land in Nanyang and prepared to grow grain. However, there are few people in Nanyang and the natives are lazy. The sea merchants bought a lot of land in Champa, but no one cultivated it, so they rushed to transport people from Jiangbei. "Wang Fuzhi explained to several cabinet ministers around that this was a decree issued by the Ministry of Household Affairs in March. Because it was during the trial period, it had not been notified to the cabinet yet.

The Ming Dynasty was a stage of social transformation in China, with commercial development and capital sprouting.

During the Wanli period, Zhong Huamin, the governor of Henan, said in a memorial, "I see the fertile soil in Zhongzhou, half of the sandalwood cotton, but the cotton is all for the traders, and the folk clothes are for trade." , and in addition to cotton fields, the Ming Dynasty also began to grow tobacco. The profit of tobacco was ten times higher than that of rice fields.

This is because "eating tobacco" has violated the taboo of Yan Fan's lineage, and the second is that a minister wrote a letter saying that some places have already half-grown tobacco.

Although the imperial court explicitly prohibited it, the pursuit of interests by the people could not be prohibited at all.In addition to natural disasters, the famine in the Ming Dynasty was also related to the cultivation of cash crops.

Of course, everything has two sides. The same thing, from multiple perspectives, can be completely opposite, but all have reasonable views.

The germination of capital made the people seek profit, and the people changed to cash crops on a large scale, causing food shortages, resulting in famine, and the collapse of the Ming Dynasty. However, if capital wants to sprout and society needs to change, it will inevitably face this kind of pain. When Western capital sprouts, it is not The same enclosure, the same "sheep eat people", ordinary people still have no way to survive, but the West found America and drove out those who could not survive in their own countries, so that they survived this period of social transformation.

China has been looking for solutions internally, but they all ended in failure, the only one that came close to success was the Song Dynasty, but it was destroyed by foreigners.

Wang Yan summed up the lessons of past dynasties, of course, because he himself represented the interests of the gentry class, and the resistance to breakthrough inward was too great, so he locked his eyes on Nanyang.

The Ministry of Households stipulates that companies should pay grain, which is not in vain. Instead, grain is used to replace a certain amount of taxes. After the business has completed the quota, the imperial court will also give a certain amount of tax exemption to encourage, otherwise the business will not agree to the Ministry of Households. scheme.

This plan is only a preliminary attempt, and it is currently only implemented in the Guangzhou Shipbuilding Department. How about the specific situation, there will be no results until next year.

The Ministry of Accounts has reported these things to him. In addition to buying land in Champa, the maritime merchants also bought a lot of land from the Nanyang feudal vassals. It should be noted that the purchase of land by maritime merchants in Nanyang will inevitably lead to local conflicts. Be careful not to intensify the contradiction and grasp the size."

"Your Highness, don't worry. After the last big reading, many vassals have been very respectful to our dynasty. When the officials return, they will write a letter to the vassal officials to protect the interests of the dynasty."

Wang Yan looked at Chen Bangyan of the Ministry of War again, "The Ministry of War should also pay attention to the Governor of Champa when writing the text. With so many refugees pouring into Champa, the local people must be disgusted. economy, we must occupy the city for the imperial court’s economic benefit.”

Champa is isolated overseas, and it is more difficult to guarantee continuity with the imperial court than Qiongzhou and Taiwan. Therefore, after discussing with the cabinet, Wang Yan learned the lesson of Yonglejian in Annan, and imitated the Dutch in Taiwan, and appointed a governor in Champa. And given great autonomy, many matters can be dealt with first, and the imperial court does not intervene in the affairs of Champa, as long as Champa pays taxes and food to the imperial court every year.

The first Governor of Champa was also from Wang Yan, and his qualifications were relatively old. Qian Yifeng, who followed him in Shandong, had been taking care of the Yangzhou people who had been resettled in Qiongzhou, so there was no improvement in the past few years, but Qiongzhou once Under his management, the island has become the upper-class state capital in Guangdong and Guangxi, second only to Guangzhou, and its political achievements are also eye-catching enough.

It was precisely because Wang Yan saw his achievements in the development of Qiongzhou that he ordered him to be the governor of Taiwan, but because of the deal with King Gui, he was the first to respond to the relocation of Taiwan, so he started to use the general that had been idle for a long time. Qu Shixu served as the governor of Taiwan, and let him be the governor of Champa.

Chen Bangyan understood what Wang Yan meant, and he hoped that the Ministry of War would let the Governor of Champa loose his hands and feet. In fact, the Ministry of War did so. Otherwise, when Champa called to report, the Ministry of War made a decision and sent it back. I am afraid that the day lily would be cold. up.

"Your Highness, the Ministry of War has already written the Governor's Mansion of Guangdong and Guangxi, as well as the Governor of Champa. If there is a problem in Nanyang, the Governor of Champa can directly mobilize the army of Champa. After the court order arrives, the court order is the main one."

Wang Yan nodded, and brought the topic back, "You Shilang, you need to continue to follow up on the resettlement of refugees. Taiwan and the island should communicate more with Governor Qu, and strive to transport all the refugees in Jiangbei away in early September. The ships conscripted by the bureaucracy will be freed up by the imperial court, and then sent to North Korea."

"Your Majesty knows that, and he will definitely live up to the trust of His Highness and the court." You Youlun got up and saluted.

Wang Yan waved his hand, "You Shilang is going back to Nanjing, he has been exhausted all the way, so go back and rest first."

You Youlun bowed and took a few steps back, then turned and left. When he left the inner hall, Wang Fuzhi said, "His Royal Highness, are you ready to start a war with Man Qing?"

Wang Yan did not deny, "The food shortage was cleared last year, and it was relieved after the summer harvest this year. Now that North Korea has [-] troops, it should play a role. I am alone planning to transfer Zheng Chenggong's navy to the North. At the same time, it harassed Shandong and the northern coast, and destroyed the autumn harvest of the Qing Dynasty."

"If this is the case, the peace talks will not be able to drag on. Will Yangzhou have to fight?" Wang Fuzhi said.

Wang Yan smiled and said, "That's right, it's been more than half a year, and the time is about the same. If you wait any longer, the cooked duck will fly."

After finishing speaking, he looked towards the outer hall and said, "Song Shilang from the Ministry of Industry came in to talk."

Among the several officials seated in the outer hall, one stood up immediately. It was Song Yingxing who had recently entered Beijing from Guangzhou. His brother Song Yingsheng was in charge of the military manufacturing in Guangzhou.

Song Yingxing walked in from the outer hall, saluted Wang Yan and several cabinet ministers, Wang Yan stretched out his hand to let him take a seat, and then asked: "Song Shilang, how is the military manufacturing in Guangzhou? Do you support the imperial court in a war of about 10 people?"

Before the Ming Dynasty, they retreated to the southwest, so many military workshops were located in Guangdong and Huguang, and had not yet moved to Jiangnan.

Song Yingxing had just come from Guangzhou, so he was undoubtedly very familiar with the manufacture and storage of military weapons. He heard Wang Yan's inquiry, and said: "Reporting to Your Highness, the storage of military weapons in Guangzhou is quite sufficient, mainly for repairing and refurbishing the armor. [-] sets, [-] guns, [-] newly-made red guns, [-] Fran cannons, [-] guns, [-] new armors, plus the manufacturing and storage of Huguang, There shouldn't be any problem supporting a [-] army, but there is a lack of gunpowder."

It is impossible for so many equipment to be manufactured within half a year. Most of them were damaged in last year's battle, repaired, and the Qing soldiers' armor was seized and transformed. In fact, there are not many newly manufactured equipment.

Wang Yan was overjoyed when he heard the previous words. When he heard that the gunpowder was insufficient, he couldn't help frowning, "More than half of the army in this dynasty uses firearms. If there is insufficient gunpowder, how can we fight? What is lacking that caused the shortage of gunpowder? Could it be that the imperial court dialed it?" Not enough silver?"

Song Yingxing hurriedly stood up and saluted, then shook his head, "Your Highness, it's not that you don't have money, it's that you don't have enough fire."

Wang Yan looked confused, how could he understand these things, "Can't you buy them even if you have money?"

"The fire nitrate is an important reserve. We could buy some from Japan before, but now that our army has expanded in size, the fire nitrate is consumed too quickly. The self-produced and purchased fire nitrate can no longer keep up with the army's consumption."

Wang Yan understood, pondered for a while, and asked, "Then the Military Weapons Supervisor has no solution? Can you expand production?"

"Reporting to Your Highness, the Military Weapons Supervisor has already tried the local method of producing nitrate, and it has achieved certain results so far, but to obtain greater production, it still needs the cooperation of local governments. The officials have already written a note and are preparing to send it to the cabinet."

Wang Yan didn't ask about the indigenous method of making nitrate, and he couldn't understand it if he said it. He only wanted the result, and let the proficient people do the professional things.

"Since there is a way to solve it, it is a good thing. The cabinet should discuss the plan proposed by Song Shilang as soon as possible. If it is feasible, we will explain the following places to the Ministry of Officials and let them cooperate!"

(End of this chapter)