Chapter 288 Economy and Party Struggle (4) I will not kill Boren
In the Nanning Marquis Mansion, in the study of the master of the building Nissin, a special glass table lamp named "Jinghua Crystal Lotus Table Lamp" produced in Shimazu Shimizu Castle in Japan has been lit. A large number of Secretariat and Ministry of Internal Affairs documents sent by Gao Qi have also been lit.
It is filled with Gao Jingshi's huge rosewood desk with a carved yang and a python pattern.
Nanning Hou Gao, the chief minister of the Ming Dynasty Cabinet and the Minister of Household Affairs, sat at his desk with a pragmatic expression and went through these submissions, statements, reports and files one by one, trying to find the answer he wanted.
"Jinghua Port Shanghai Port Report: There were 96 merchant ships leaving port in the first quarter of this year, 46 less than the first quarter of last year. There were 32 large ships leaving the port in the first quarter of this year, 19 less than last year; China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation 2
Seventeen ships, ten less than last year; thirty-seven small boats, seventeen less than last year. There were 104 merchant ships entering Hong Kong in the first quarter of this year, an increase of 27 ships from the first quarter of last year...
According to the investigation and judgment of the Port Authority, the increase in ships entering the port and the decrease in ships leaving the port in the first quarter of this year were mainly due to the impact of the war. Among them, the Japanese Civil War led to the trade blockade by Beijing and China as the main reason, and the Western Expedition in Southern Xinjiang led to the decrease in Nanyang trade volume.
Want a reason.
In addition, Luzon's re-export trade, which is handled by the Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance, also experienced a significant decline in the first quarter of this year. The reason for this has not yet been identified, and it may be necessary to coordinate with the Beiyang Fleet for details. Port Director of Jinghua Shanghai Port
It will be reported."
Holding this report, Gao Pragmatic pondered for a long time, and finally sighed in relief and murmured: "If Liu Xin had not gone to southern Xinjiang, I should have known the whole story long ago. Why did I wait until the incident happened to realize it suddenly?"
He was really moved by this.
Zhu Yijun can almost act as a hands-off shopkeeper, and can at most make decisions on some major matters. This is because most of the specific matters have been drafted by the highly pragmatic cabinet for him to deal with.
All memorials sent to Zhu Yijun will generally be divided into three categories by the cabinet, and then sent by the Supervisor of Ceremonies according to this classification: one category is urgent and important; one category is important but not necessarily urgent; and the last category is insignificant.
At this time, Zhu Yijun would first look at the first category, to have a rough look at what Shu Wen said. After having an understanding, he would then look at the response strategies proposed by the cabinet vote. Then Zhu Yijun would probably only need the word "ke" from Zhu to approve it, and then hand it over to Secretary Li.
Supervisor.
Based on the emperor's "yes" (agreement), the ceremonial supervisor will write an imperial edict according to the method proposed in the vote, and send it to the cabinet again for review. After the cabinet reviewed the edict again, it felt that there was no problem, and signed it.
, issue it to the Sixth Section, the Sixth Section will review it correctly, attach a signature, approve the release, and send it to the General Affairs Department. This is a basic process, and the following two are the same.
After reading the first category, the emperor will look at the second category, which is important but not urgent matters. There are actually many matters in this category. For example, some officials suggested tightening the academic style and made suggestions one, two, three, and four.
The matters mentioned in this kind of memorial are definitely important, but the cabinet may not think that it needs to be done immediately, so the vote is drawn up as 1, 2, 3, 4 to correspond, saying that your idea is very good, and I (the cabinet vote is planned to use the tone of the emperor) also think
What you said makes sense, but due to reasons such as 1, 2, 3, and 4, it is temporarily inconvenient to implement these tasks. Finally, I would like to express my condolences.
Generally speaking, when Zhu Yijun reads the first type of memorials and drafts, he is more serious and examines them more carefully. When it comes to the second type, he is just shaking his legs and stuffing snacks into his mouth. Chew, read it hastily and say "yes"... The following procedures are carried out according to the first category.
When it comes to the third category, Zhu Yijun would still read it in his early years, but now he basically doesn’t. It’s hard to say that he is slacking in politics, because this category is really meaningless.
For example, a certain Beijing official was sent to another place (not necessarily demoted, but may also be promoted), and wrote a short essay to express his greetings. He said that he had been out of Beijing for more than a year and missed the emperor, and then he wrote eloquently. One or two thousand words, but in the end I found that there was no work-related content.
Don't think it's all nonsense, the cabinet still has to draft a reply, because the emperor also needs to answer this kind of greeting. However, Gao Pragmatic is also very lazy at this point, and usually only drafts four words: "As usual, comfort".
Zhu Yijun was even lazier than Gao Pragmatic. He didn't even bother to write the word "ke", and directly ordered Chen Ju: "From now on, these kind of greetings can be written as written, without waiting for Zhu's approval." So it was formed. As a rule, the memorials that have been approved by Emperor Zhu are placed in the pile on the far left and do not need to be approved by Emperor Zhu. The Chief of Ceremonies can take them back and write a reply according to the "as usual comfort" drafted on the note.
In fact, this kind of memorials looking for trouble were not only found in the Ming Dynasty, but also existed in almost all dynasties. Among them, the Tatar and Qing Dynasties left the most authentic memorials because they were relatively young. For example, the Forbidden City published a large number of "nonsense excerpts" about the responses of Qing emperors. , there are many, many. Here is just a more interesting example, or a person:
During the Kangxi period, Sun Wencheng, a weaver in Hangzhou, wrote "Taiwan Zhu Yigui gathered a crowd and raised an army" one day. The content was actually one sentence: Report to the emperor that Zhu Yigui gathered a crowd to raise an army! - Note that this man not only did not give the time, but also the location. Just "Taiwan" in general.
Kang Mazi replied: "I really don't understand your words without beginning or end."
In fact, Kang Mazi's reply was very polite, because the news of the Hangzhou Weaving Report was actually old news. Someone had reported it as early as two months ago, and it was reported by the then Governor of Fujian and Zhejiang. At that time, Kang Mazi replied that this matter was a bit Da, is writing the edict of recruitment.
According to historical records, Zhu Yigui started an uprising at the end of April, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang reported it in early May, the Qing troops landed in mid-June, and the situation calmed down at the end of June. However, Sun Wencheng, a weaver from Hangzhou, told the emperor in July, "Some people in Taiwan have gathered to raise troops." "...You can imagine Kang Mazi's mood at that time.
However, Sun Wencheng, the careless man from Hangzhou, continued to commit suicide. He wrote a note asking for the saint's blessing, and also mentioned that the abbot of Fayu Temple passed away, and a scholar named Qiu Zhaoao also died some time ago.
Kang Mazi replied: Got it. Please fold it here and put it in an envelope. It's rude and disrespectful. (You put the note asking for my condolences and this memorial in the same envelope. Isn't it an itch? )
This old man Sun Wencheng is not only confused, but he also loves to ask for greetings. According to the released records, he will send out a greeting message in about two or three months. Other than asking for blessings, there is nothing wrong with him. Most of Kang Mazi's replies are: "I'm well", but one time, maybe because I was in a good mood, I wrote a few more words: "I'm very well, and I'm a little fatter."
Sun Wencheng wrote nonsense stories all the way from Kangxi to Yongzheng. I don’t know if Kangxi was numb, but Yongzheng probably was really numb, so once Sun Wencheng submitted a "weather and grain price report", Yongzheng replied as usual: I
install.
You see, sometimes the emperor is not so easy to be, especially the emperor of the Qing Dynasty is different from the Ming Dynasty. The emperor of the Ming Dynasty is a Han emperor. These matters can be left to the cabinet to deal with them in categories. You can handle the big and important things by yourself, and deal with the small things by yourself.
Just do it as an example.
The Qing Dynasty cannot play like this. They are a small clan but a big clan. They are worried about changes anytime and anywhere. The emperor has to grasp the big and small matters. He must read all the memorials in person before he can feel at ease, so there is such a stupid dialogue as above.
Of course, this type of dialogue also existed in the Ming Dynasty. After Gao Pragmatic became the first assistant, he would put these memorials in the third category. In addition to greetings and so on, there are also things such as "A chaste woman of such and such a place, please ask the emperor to build an archway", "
"Someone in a certain place picks up gold without being ignorant", "Someone in a certain place is eager for public justice and does a good deed of such and such"... It stands to reason that these are all things that promote social integrity (at least at this time). For ancient China, which pays attention to the rule of virtue, it is necessary
The reward, and the forced gram is full, needs to be given by the emperor, but you can't allow him to submit the memorial.
However, for the emperor, aren’t I busy with all the things I have to do every day? You can just handle this little thing yourself as usual, how careless you are!
Therefore, it is self-evident how important a well-functioning cabinet is. However, Zhu Yijun has a cabinet led by highly pragmatic leaders to manage it for him, summarizing the major and important events at present, so that he can handle national affairs in a clear and coherent manner. However,
After Gao Pingshi, Secretary-General Liu Xin, went to southern Xinjiang to supervise Gao Yuan's Western Expedition, there was no one around him to help him summarize the major events in Beijing recently, and this... was exactly what he failed to do this time.
Timely discover the most important objective reason for the sudden rampage of the Jiangnan chaebol.
Although there are various secretaries in the Jinghua Secretariat, there is only one secretary-general. The most important job of the secretary-general is to summarize and classify things, and then act as a consultant for Gao Pragmatic's boss based on the specific circumstances of these matters.
He checked and filled in the gaps.
Now that Liu Xin has been gone for nearly half a year, no one can be as sensitive as her about the problems caused by what happened in the first quarter and report the anomalies to Gao Yingshi, and Gao Yingshi has been involved in a lot of foreign affairs in the past six months - the battlefield
Opened three, internally to ensure the logistics of the Western Expeditionary Army, to provide disaster relief in various places across the country, and to prepare for the next step of military reform and imperial examination reform... He is also an ordinary person, how can he pay attention to those who have not been summarized
Summarized messages from various departments in Beijing?
For example, after reading the news reported by Shanghai Port just now, Gao Pragmatic's first reaction was: Oh, the trade volume has dropped because I blocked Japan and fought in Nanyang. That's normal. It will be fine after the war is over.
Therefore, his reply was no better than those of the emperors in historical materials: "I have read it, and the fleet will contact us for consultation before reporting."
But at this time, because of the Jiangnan chaebol's rampage that he couldn't understand, which led to the direct impeachment of Zhejiang Ningshao Bingbei, his chief minister, he had to carefully sort out the various materials collected in the past six months - which counted him
It's a professional, otherwise I wouldn't have figured it out so quickly - only to find out that the problem is actually not difficult to find.
The most straightforward thing is that the war between Japan and southern Xinjiang caused serious damage to the business of the Jiangnan chaebols, and this account was directly charged to Gao Pragmatic.
But Gao's pragmatic understanding is clearer than that of people of this era, because he knows history - world history, so when he gets serious at this moment, he quickly understands that there are actually some changes in the global economy at this time, and among these changes are the
Almost all the parts related to the Ming Dynasty are not conducive to the Ming Dynasty.
Let me talk about this one by one. The first keyword is price revolution. The so-called price revolution actually refers to the depreciation of gold and silver and the rise in prices in Europe caused by the Spanish colonial empire plundering massive amounts of gold and silver from the Americas and bringing them back to Europe. However, highly pragmatic
The emergence of price revolution has caused some changes between this price revolution and the price revolutions in history.
I won’t talk much about the historical price revolution here (they say that if you want to know, you will check it out, so I’ll believe it first). This change mainly affects two aspects: First, the Ming Dynasty Economic Complex (the Ming Dynasty Jinghua Real Control)
area) is much more powerful than the Ming Dynasty's "silver black hole" effect in history; second, Beijing forced Spain to hand over the Philippines and Portugal to withdraw from Nanyang, which allowed the Spanish-Portuguese Communist Federation to concentrate more power back on Europe, while at the same time it gained ground in Asia
The benefits may not be reduced.
These two changes directly led to a certain degree of change in the situation in Europe. The changes were also reflected in two aspects, namely the economic aspect and the military aspect.
In terms of economy, the Spanish-Portuguese Communist Federation is in East Asia. Although trade in Southeast Asia requires taxes, their highly pragmatic "mercantilism" (mercantilism in a non-traditional sense) makes their trade volume in East Asia smaller than in history.
Greatly increased, this allows them to obtain more goods from East Asia and Southeast Asia to sell to Europe, or for their own use, which greatly enhances the economic strength of the Spanish-Portuguese Communist Federation.
The most direct manifestation is that the historical Dutch War of Independence was originally an "Eighty Years' War" with a "Twelve Years Truce" in the middle. As a result, this time Spain's finances were much stronger than in history, so the original war broke out.
The siege of Ostend in 1601-1604 occurred nearly two years earlier, and this time the Dutch were defeated more severely than in history.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Although the Spanish and Portuguese navy still suffered the bad luck of the Armada's failure to invade England before, it recovered its strength faster. In the "Siege of Ostend"
It had almost completely blocked the coast of the Netherlands before.
At the same time, due to war needs, the Spanish and Portuguese empires reduced their purchases of other goods when they came to trade in southern Xinjiang, and instead increased their purchases of weapons and ammunition. This is not surprising, as the Spanish and Portuguese had already seen Jinghua’s efforts.
Weapons, and their own production capacity is not sufficient (it has not been sufficient in history. The Spanish characteristic is that I have mines, so it is better to buy them than to build them), so purchasing them from Jinghua became a natural choice.
The huge profits on arms are no worse than silk, porcelain and spices. Of course, the part that affects the Jiangnan chaebol is that they don’t have to go to Shanghai and Ningbo to buy arms (they couldn’t go directly before, but to do business with Jinghua, Jinghua’s own ships also have to go there)
), just go directly to Dingnan.
In addition, their transportation capacity is also limited. To transport arms, silk and porcelain must be reduced. This directly leads to the Jiangnan Chaebol's main business being almost cut in half.
Some people may ask, is the business almost dead? The answer is: almost. The reason is not complicated: in the past few years, this type of business has been experiencing strong consumption and insufficient supply, so the Jiangnan chaebols worked hard to expand production capacity. But building factories also requires
Well, whether it is expanding the scale of the mulberry forest or recruiting people, this all requires money. Where will the money come from?
The answer is: loans from banks that have emerged in recent years such as Jinghua Bank. Yes, the path that all economies will inevitably take when they develop to this stage, and people are already taking it in the Ming Dynasty at this moment.
Even though the Jiangnan chaebols disliked Jinghua One Hundred and Twenty, no one had trouble with money - Jinghua Bank had already publicly demonstrated their strength and was recognized as the most reputable bank in the entire Ming Dynasty. No one believed that it would go bankrupt.
Coupled with the advanced nature of Jinghua Bank's loan business, is it any wonder that Jiangnan Chaebol turned to Jinghua Bank for loans? You know, at this time, Jiangnan Chaebol was already close to being a capitalist. Could anyone expect capitalists to refuse to make money out of face?
In this way, trouble comes: I asked your family to borrow such a large amount of money to put into production, but your family went to war and my business went bad. At this time, I didn't get anything, and after going bankrupt, the collateral
(Factory buildings, equipment, mulberry trees, etc.) still have to be compensated to you?
Damn it, you can’t kill the pig as hard as you do on the killing plate!
Gao Pragmatic's sigh before was the same as this: It's really not me who wants to harm you... Okay, I know I can't explain this clearly.
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