In the next two days, Huang Zhiting began to seize the time to discuss with the big businessmen in Liaodong about the purchase of ginseng, velvet antler and other precious Chinese medicinal materials and the sale of Annan rice. Of course, Jinghua was indispensable here, and even acted as a credit guarantee, etc., but this
These are all details, so I won’t go into details here.
Gao Pragmatic is also very busy here. In addition to the planned "heavy industry" development in Liaodong, which to him seems to only require copying the Kaiping model, agricultural issues can make him worry about life for a long time.
At this moment, he really realized the greatness of Mr. Yuan of later generations. At present, the output per acre of the entire country of Ming Dynasty is high in the world. Unfortunately, it is still not enough under various natural disasters. And in the
To describe Liaodong as "not enough" is really an understatement.
I didn’t know it when I wasn’t the governor, but after I became the governor, Gao Jingshi specially called a group of financial talents brought by Gao Guoyan himself to do calculations, and found that the annual grain shortage in Liaodong was as high as more than 53 million kilograms (already
Converted to modern habits for easy reading), except that part of the salt in Liaodong can be exchanged from the mainland (this account now goes to Jinghua, because Jinghua "contracted" the Yingkou Salt Field, as mentioned above), the final gap is still 4,000
About ten thousand kilograms.
Forty million kilograms, that is 20 million kilograms, equivalent to 20,000 tons. When converted into tons, it seems that the amount is not large.
However, the actual population of Liaodong may only be four million [according to the historical population records in the Liaodong Branch, Jilin Branch, and Heilongjiang Branch of "China Population"]. Not all of these four million are Han people. According to the official statistics of the Ming Dynasty
A rough estimate - and it's only a rough estimate - the Han people account for "seventeen", or 70%, which is less than three million.
Calculated at three million, this gap of 40 million kilograms is equivalent to more than 13 kilograms of food shortage per person per year. It is indeed not much, but there is a very critical problem here - do you think that people in this era every
Can you have rice with every meal?
Of course it's okay to be pragmatic, but for the civilians in Liaodong to receive such treatment, this is a typical example of sleeplessness.
The food eaten by ordinary people in Liaodong is really complicated. All kinds of coarse grains are already considered, and wild vegetables are also good. All kinds of poisonous grasses, roots, and barks are all on the plate. As for hunting, this stuff is pretty good.
It’s not a joke, it requires a lot of patience, and it’s not a drought-to-flood-guaranteed-yield project, so it just depends on your appearance.
Fishing is of course also an option, but it also requires skills and tools. Even fishing is not that simple - if you have this spare time, you might as well do more work! But since Liaodong's productivity is not high, it is obvious that silver
The price is expensive. A day laborer in the capital can earn more than two taels of silver per month, but in Liaodong it is almost half. This is the gap.
As for eating rice for every meal, it means that this family either has a good business background and is well-off, or at least has a master in the family, which is difficult for a scholar to do - Li Chengliang was a scholar in his early years, but he was too poor to even go to the capital.
You can't even go through the formalities to inherit your father's position, this is proof.
Therefore, under this circumstance, the average grain shortage of the population in Liaodong is still more than 13 kilograms, which is very unscientific.
Gao pragmatically calculated the number of acres of fields and the average yield per mu, but the final results were always inconsistent. There was obviously a big omission between the two.
This omission could only be due to a few individuals occupying too many fields, and these fields were concealed through donations, deceptive mailings, etc.
Damn it, no wonder so many hidden fields were found in Shandong during the previous clearing of land (Liaodong in the Ming Dynasty was merged into Shandong, and there were also very complicated military settlements, etc.). Now it seems that there is still a problem with the clearing of land in Shandong, at least
Juntontian definitely didn't find out.
And Liaodong is a "military-controlled area". Generally speaking, officials and officials who are exiled have no interest in buying large properties in Liaodong. At most, officials who are originally from Liaodong will make a fortune from it.
A pragmatic person can imagine it with his or her toes. Those who really eat meat and drink blood are probably military generals. Many officers and generals must have a large number of hidden fields under their names. As for the largest family among them, there is no need to think too much.
It must be the Li Chengliang family.
The world is as dark as crows. Li Chengliang cannot be blamed solely for being greedy. This is something Gao Xiangpang understands clearly. However, the situation in Liaodong looks much better from the outside. If it is such a mess on the inside, something will happen sooner or later.
In the future, when the "Corn Plan" is completed, it will certainly be able to solve part of the problem, but it will only treat the symptoms and not the root cause. If we want to cure the root cause, we have to think of ways from the system.
It's hard to say how much land Li Chengliang occupied, how much of it was military land occupation, how much of it was "illegal gains", and how much of it was still in a gray area.
But from Gao Pragmatic's point of view, he can temporarily tolerate those things in the gray area, such as the occupation of military land and completely illegal gains, but he will definitely not be able to tolerate these things. He must find a way to change these things during his term, even if his term is not enough.
There is no way to do it completely, and a way must be explored.
During these two days, most of his energy was devoted to thinking about land and food issues.
The remaining small part is to consider Annan's support for the war in Myanmar.
In fact, if Annan supports the war against Myanmar, Annan can handle most of it by himself. Nearly two years have passed, and Annan's military and industrial departments in Beijing have begun to take shape, and the output of Ha Tinh Iron Mine can keep up. If we really talk about the military
The problem is actually just one: Annan has no gunpowder output.
To make gunpowder, you must first have sulfur and saltpeter. However, Gao Pragmatic's geographical level is limited. He doesn't know where in Annan the two brothers dug it. He didn't ask Liu Xin last time, so Annan doesn't have the ability to produce gunpowder at all now.
The current main production area of sulfur in the Ming Dynasty is Sichuan, and there is also some in Gansu. The Ming Dynasty still has relatively strict control over gunpowder, and Gao Pragmatic does not intend to violate the ban (the Ministry of War and the Royal Horse Supervisor will investigate after the military industry is privately owned), so it is exported to Annan
Gunpowder is relatively limited.
This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading! Of course, this itself is also in line with Gao Pragmatic's idea of controlling Annan - it is impossible for him to have the ability to produce firearms and use firearms in one stop, otherwise, with Gao Pragmatic
Status, this problem is not unsolvable.
The imperial court wanted to coax and Annan wanted to control, so Gao Pragmatic thought of another way: to develop Taiwan Island.
Although Taiwan is now a desert island and is not rich in resources, its sulfur reserves alone are relatively reliable. The sulfur in the northern volcanic area is at least sufficient for practical use for hundreds of years.
He had told Huang Zhiting before that the need for food in Taiwan might increase year by year. It was for this reason that after all, there had to be people to develop Taiwan. The more immigrants there were, the bigger the food gap would be - these people would definitely not be able to be self-sufficient in food in the first place.
.
After sulfur is done, there is also saltpeter. Daming’s saltpeter production areas are very close to sulfur production areas, especially Sichuan, which is the main force, and the other is Longxi, which is the production area of excavated saltpeter mines (other places are not without them).
In addition to mining, the only remaining solution is the "dirty method": boiling saltpeter from toilets. Of course, the Ming Dynasty was not like King Charles I of England, who ordered that all toilets in the country be owned by the state, so the Ming Dynasty's
Boiling saltpeter is basically a folk behavior - of course, the health clinics also do it, but the court generally does not talk about it directly.
Gao Pragmatic has been looking for the source of "overseas saltpetre", and finally he found it - in Tumut.
To be more specific, it is an amazing coincidence. Several large saltpeter mining areas are located in the area controlled by Han Naji's hometown, West Post, which later became the Alxa Left Banner of Inner Mongolia.
The Xishao area of Hannaji is actually a very large area, how big is it... It probably started from Bayannur in Inner Mongolia in later generations, and then all the Inner Mongolia areas to the west, all the way to the Gansu border of the Ming Dynasty. It is estimated that
With an area of 200,000 square kilometers, it is larger than Liaodong.
Of course, these places are vast and sparsely populated areas. Originally, there was no use in the Bahannaji tribe. As a lord, he himself had never even been there.
When the people from Jinghua discovered saltpeter there, they easily discussed the development plan with Han Naji.
The development plan was very generous. Hannaji, in the dual names of Chechen Khan and Xishaotaiji, paid three thousand taels of silver per year to the three major saltpeter producing areas of Jilong Tonggu, Bayindala, and Tunyanchi.
The price was chartered to Jinghua.
That's right, three thousand taels, packed up. The only condition is that Yan Jinghua of Hetun Yanchi cannot touch his, and can only dig saltpeter.
It doesn't matter, he is pragmatic and has no shortage of salt. He owns the Yingkou Salt Field and his uncle has the Changlu Salt Field. If he waits a few more years to complete the reconstruction and expansion of the Yingkou Salt Field, he might become the world's largest salt merchant.
When the time comes, the status of the Zhang family in the salt industry cannot be said to be equal to two-thirds of the world. At least one-third of the world will be no problem, so Hetun Yanchi will let Bhan Naji stay on his own.
That's it - anyway, the Mongolians don't even know how to refine it, they can only sell raw salt, there is no technical content at all, and the output is average, so I love so and so.
The Ming court's level of control over the economy was actually very average. It only controlled what was produced within the Ming Dynasty and not what was produced overseas. Therefore, the output of these three major saltpeter mines was high and pragmatic. They could completely bypass supervision and just pay a 3% tax.
——This number was set when Gao Gong was in office. Most of the commercial taxes that have been levied across the country are now at this standard.
In this way, Annan's war was fought a little too early. Although the saltpeter problem has been mostly solved, the sulfur issue has not yet been solved. Therefore, if Gao Pragmatic needs Annan to start a war with Burma, the sulfur problem can only be solved from Japan.
Think of something.
Beijing and Japan now have trade - the Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance does this, so it is not impossible for Gao Pragmatic to buy sulfur from Japan. Moreover, because Japan is located in a volcanic zone, not only is there a lot of sulfur, but the quality is also very good.
The price is also relatively reasonable.
But the trade with Japan is relatively unstable at the moment, because Japan is now in a state of chaos - a major event happened last year: the Honnoji Incident.
Needless to say, the Honnoji Change was probably the most famous coup in Japanese history and had the greatest impact. It could even be said to have completely changed the direction of Japan.
However, Gao Pragmatic had no time to lament the death of Oda Nobunaga, and he did not even worry about Toyotomi Hideyoshi - it was useless to worry, since he could not reach it and could not find a reason to interfere, and the Ming Dynasty still had a lot of troubles that it had not solved.
The key is that after the Incident at Honnoji Temple, Japan's Warring States Period is about to come to an end, but this "end" is also a particularly chaotic period, so he is mainly afraid that there will be problems with the purchase of sulfur, so he has continuously instructed Beiyang Maritime Trade to speed up the purchase of sulfur for the past two days.
They purchased sulfur vigorously, even regardless of the cost.
At the same time, he ordered Gao Qi (Gao Sitang before changing his name) to shift the focus of developing Taiwan Island from the southwestern Taipei area to the Taipei area, focusing on the search for natural sulfur mines - the high pragmatic level was there, he only knew
The approximate location of the sulfur mines in northern Taiwan is very broad and cannot be accurately determined, so we have to send people to find it.
After finishing these things, he calculated the time and felt that even if Annan wanted to send troops, it would take at least three months to prepare. In other words, Liu Wei's current task was still very heavy.
The key is that Gao Pragmatic always feels that Liu Xian's military strength is a bit too weak. This guy's own servants are less than 3,000 (this is determined by Liu Xian's background. His background is too low and his level of money-making is not adequate). The only
What makes Gao pragmatic a little relieved is that Liu Wei's battle seems to have been relatively smooth in history.
Although I don't know why.
Gao pragmatism suspected that this was because he was used to using force to overwhelm others when he was commanding battles, and was not used to Liu Wei's strategy of breaking through with elite troops and winning in one fell swoop.
It's a pity that Gao Pangshi didn't know enough about the specific combat process of the Ming-Burma War - there's nothing we can do about it. The documents of Chinese dynasties all record the specific combat very crudely. In many cases, it is a very important victory battle, but there may be only two records in the history books.
Three words: Defeat, break, defeat, break, etc. The specific method of defeat is not mentioned at all, which is simply fucked.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Qi Jiguang hit the nail on the head when he said that the ancient art of war emphasized strategy rather than the "basic method" of training and using troops.
However, although Liu Wei won the battle in history, and Gao Pangshi had specially strengthened the military equipment of Liu Wei's troops, he himself was a "bad fighter" after all, so after much deliberation, he still gave it to Liu Wei and Cao
Gan wrote a letter from each of them.
The letter to Liu Wei was to tell him that if there was a shortage in logistics or even military preparation, he should go to the Southwest Branch of Jinghua Trading Company to solve the problem, and he would give them an order to fully cooperate; and the letter to Cao Gan was of course telling him this.
, and asked him to notify the Southwest Branch. After all, he was in charge of Jinghua Trading Co., Ltd., and Gao Jingshi did not want to jump over the chain of command at all times - Chang Gong's lesson from back then was not far away, and Gao Jingshi did not intend to imitate him in logistics.
After finishing all these things, it was already the third day. Huang Zhiting's affairs were almost done. Gao Pragmatic was thinking about holding a practice banquet for her and sending her back to Annan to take charge.
Unexpectedly, an accident happened.
Early that morning, the guarding eunuch Han Guang hurried to Fuyuan to ask for an audience with Gao Pragmatic. After meeting Gao Pragmatic, he went straight to the point: "Prime Minister Gao Gao, the emperor has called you urgently, please return to the capital immediately!"
"Now?" Gao Pangshi was stunned: "In what name should I return to Beijing?"
Han Guang smiled bitterly and said: "This prince didn't say... Mr. Chen just meant that he just reported his duties."
Gao pragmatic felt even more incredible. He was about to say, "But I have just taken up my new job." Who knows, Han Guang remembered something again and slapped his head hard: "Oh, look at my memory! The emperor also said, please
Take Deputy Envoy Huang with you."
"Deputy Envoy Huang? Which Deputy Envoy Huang?" Gao Pingshi was simply confused. There are now two Deputy Envoys Huang in Liaodong. One is Huang Zhiting, the Deputy Tribute Envoy of Annan, and the other is a military officer, also surnamed Huang, who is a senior official in his post.
He is the Deputy Envoy of Shandong Province, and he can also be called Deputy Envoy.
But Han Guang seemed to have forgotten the deputy envoy behind him, and said directly: "Of course it is the one in your house, who else can it be?"
Gao Pragmatic twitched the corner of his mouth and thought to himself: Can you, this "man" of yours, be a little more careful in what you say? What do you mean by this person in my house? I'm so busy, but I don't have time to do anything bad... Ahem, all.
Nothing done, nothing done!
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PS: My biological clock seems to be out of whack today, so I have to post this chapter early. I probably won’t be able to bear it anymore and will fall asleep at night...