On New Year's Eve, Gao Zengnuo and his colleagues rarely had meat and wine. When they went to bed at night, most of them slept in enamel jars and sugar. Everyone's dreams that night were sweet.
, this night the soldiers even forgot that they were on the battlefield.
The soldiers could temporarily forget the current situation, but Zhu Youjian could not forget it. Qing soldiers and bandits were wreaking havoc in the belly of the Ming Dynasty. The latest battle report showed that although Kaifeng City was still in the hands of the Ming Dynasty officers and soldiers, the situation in the Central Plains was quite dire.
Optimistic, it is said that Li Zicheng now has millions of troops. After having done most of the damage around Kaifeng, he is now turning south.
After delegating power to Gao Mingheng, the governor of Henan, Chen Yongfu, the commander-in-chief, and Queen Zhou of Kaifeng Mansion, the situation in the Central Plains did not change significantly. The only thing that is acceptable is that they still held on to Kaifeng City without foreign aid. Listen.
It is said that in order to defend Kaifeng City, the King of Zhou spent all his wealth, collected millions of taels of silver, recruited more than 30,000 soldiers, and fought hard with Li Zicheng's army several times outside the city, finally forcing Li Zicheng to withdraw from the area around Kaifeng.
These clans are still rich! King Zhou is probably not the richest vassal king, and when Li Zicheng besieged Kaifeng twice before, he spent a large amount of money to reward the defenders. Under such circumstances, he was asked to recruit troops to defend the city on his own.
He could still come up with so much money for the city. Looking at the secret report sent over, Zhu Youjian couldn't help but sigh, "In the entire Ming Dynasty, only he, the court and the people were poor! Everyone else was richer than the last one. Li Zicheng
Not to mention tens of millions of taels of silver in Beijing, Zhang Xianzhong, who had caused a lot of trouble in Chengdu, also made a lot of money in Wuchang. Later generations unearthed the ruins of the Western King Shen Yin, and he had seen Bai Huahua on TV and online before traveling through time.
of silver.
After completing various ceremonies three days before the New Year, Zhu Youjian quickly asked Wang Chengen to summon Zhou Yanru to the inner hall. This year was a crucial day and could not be missed.
"Taifu, the new year has begun again! The situation this year is very bad. Let's not talk about the rogue bandits causing chaos in the Central Plains, but let's talk about the captive soldiers going south. The captive soldiers have been along the canal, and the water transportation will be difficult to smooth. As time goes by, I'm afraid
There will be a big problem, and the court must prepare early!"
"Your Majesty, the poor water transportation has indeed had a great impact. I think we should issue an order to let Jian Heng lead troops to open the canal road as soon as possible. According to common sense, after the Chinese New Year, the captive troops should withdraw outside the pass. As long as the captive troops can wait until
If the troops withdraw northward, the situation will be reversed."
"Grand Master, do you think the soldiers in Jian Heng's hands can force the Japanese soldiers to retreat? I don't think they have this ability! Years ago, all the army was concentrated in Tongzhou, and even the Tianjin front line failed to block the Japanese soldiers from going south. Now the Japanese soldiers are now
In the south of Zhili, the Shandong area is moving in like a wind. I see that Governor Heng's army is mostly infantry. How can I keep up with the captive soldiers? According to common sense, the captive soldiers will indeed withdraw outside the pass around the beginning of spring. But if the captive soldiers do not withdraw,
Where? The situation now lies with the enemy, not with us. We cannot place all our hopes on the Japanese troops withdrawing northward! We must have a plan to let me take care of things."
Is it up to me? After hearing the emperor's request, Zhou Yanru couldn't help but want to retaliate. Do you think you can do this if you think of it? Chen Xinjia, with his tens of thousands of diligent soldiers, can at most be compared with Donglu Zhi.
The soldiers have been fighting for a while. If you can't defeat them on the battlefield, what other plan can you come up with? "Your Majesty, why don't you stop issuing King Qin's order and gather more soldiers and horses in Zhili area? If there are more soldiers, we should be able to defeat them faster.
The army drove out of the pass."
"Grand Master, King Qin's order from years ago has already summoned everyone who can be summoned. Those who haven't come will find it difficult to come again. This method will not work. Driving away the captive soldiers is not the most important thing. What is important is to restore the capital as soon as possible.
and food supplies for the surrounding armies.”
Driving away the captive soldiers is not as important as restoring the grain route, but now the two things are tied together! How can you restore the grain transportation without driving the captive soldiers out of the canal? Faced with the emperor's undue demands, Zhou Yanru fell into
fell silent.
Seeing that Zhou Yanru had nothing to say, Zhu Youjian had no choice but to tell his plan: "Isn't there another way to transport grain from the south? I think we can think of some ways to use sea transportation to create a channel from Beijing to Tianjin.
For now, smooth traffic can still be guaranteed.”
"Sea transport? Your Majesty, the imperial court does not have that many sea ships available at the moment. There is a risk of shipwrecks in transporting food on the sea, so it is probably impossible to count on it."
"We have to do something first before we can count on it, otherwise we can't keep waiting like this, right? The imperial court doesn't have sea ships, but the private sector does! Let's set up a customs office at the Tianjin port to handle the matter of importing grain from the south.
, in this way, it can be regarded as an additional escape route and protection."
"Set up a customs office in Tianjin? How can we allow grain from the south to be transported here? What are your majesty's specific regulations?" Zhou Yanru felt that there was something wrong with this customs office, so he quickly asked what the specific implementation plan was.
"This is what I think. I will set up a customs office in Tianjin to inspect all merchant ships and civilian ships coming and going. All merchant ships entering and leaving Tianjin Port will be taxed 10%!"
Aren’t you going to transport grain to the capital by sea? Why does this customs office have to collect taxes as soon as it is established? This is a joke! “Your Majesty, setting up customs and taxation at sea is against the ancestral system. Besides, setting up customs and taxation has nothing to do with it.
What’s the deal with transporting grain from the south?”
"Listen to what I have to say! Tax collection is not the purpose. Any merchant ship that transports grain will not only transport the grain tax-free, but will also be exempted from tariffs on goods that are as heavy as the grain it transports. In this way, the merchant ship will also be tax-free in order to
We need to transport more food through customs!”
"Exempt from commercial taxes on goods that are as heavy as the grain being transported? Doesn't this mean that as long as the grain is transported, there is no tax to collect? What is the purpose of setting up a customs office?"
"If there is no customs tax collection? Who of the merchant ships coming in will transport grain to offset the tax? This move is to force the merchant ships to transport more grain."
"This is similar to the salt introduction system of this dynasty! It's just that if this happens, the Cao Road will be affected. The Cao Road is the foundation of the country and cannot be touched."
"Sea transport only uses people's grain, not canal grain. Unless there is an emergency and the canal road is really unusable, sea transportation can be used temporarily."
"Your Majesty, this can only be used as an emergency measure and cannot last long!"
"It was originally an emergency measure. The Customs Department should be established for one year and then withdrawn after one year!"
"But once this yamen is established and then withdrawn, what will happen to the officials in the yamen?"
"Find some temporary people, let's use them first! However, these people cannot be chosen casually, they must be careful. I will work with Jin Yiwei and Dongchang to fully supervise the operation of the Customs Department. If they are allowed to do the same as the salt affairs
, it has become such a mess that Tianjin will not be able to bring in 500,000 shi of food a year, so I will chop off their heads!"
Five hundred thousand shi of grain a year? This is almost 20% of the current canal grain. It is also a temporary worker who transports civilian grain. Zhou Yanru feels that there is no way to find anyone to do this work! Unless someone is sick,
Then he went to take over this stall. "Your Majesty, there is a serious shortage of officials in the imperial court at present. It is difficult to gather enough officials to operate the Customs Department. What should we do?"
"How about I let the people in the palace do it first?"
"Absolutely not! Internal supervisors intervening in taxation is a disservice to the country. This must not be done! During the time of the late emperor and Shenzong, it was because of the widespread establishment of tax supervisors that the current situation in the country was so corrupt." Zhou Yanru felt that this was actually the case.
It would be okay to leave this thankless temporary job to the inner palace. But as the nominal leader of the civilian interest group, he knew that he could not agree to this. If he agreed, he would definitely be kicked out of office by the official.