Helping Cen Ling keep the matter a secret, Gao Jingshi finally agreed. Although he still had a lot of doubts about whether Mo Chao was the murderer who poisoned Zhang Ren, but in this situation, he could have a target of suspicion.
It's better than not even being able to identify the suspect.
As for whether the internal situation in Sicheng is straight or not, Gao Pragmatic generally believes what Cen Ling said. At least one thing is that they did send Cen Yunhan to Guilin and handed over such a large and important proton. If there is no problem behind it, it would be unjustifiable.
Already.
But believe it or not, there is no need to worry about whether or not to help, or how to help. Gao Pragmatic has only one basic point of conscience when doing things, which is whether it is beneficial to the continuation of the Han Dynasty. At other times, his conscience
Far less important than reason.
The so-called rationality, to put it bluntly, is about interests. The only difference from ordinary people is that when Gao Pragmatic talks about interests, it is basically not about money anymore. At least in Guangxi today, he doesn't think anyone is worthy of talking about money with him.
Although "Si Bo Tian Yang, Liang Guang Cen Huang" has a famous reputation, his reputation does not depend on his wealth. In terms of wealth, the Duke of Wei in Nanjing and his family might be able to defeat these four major chieftain families.
Is that useful as an egg?
Leaving aside the two families in Guizhou, let’s talk about the Cen and Huang families. According to what Huang Zhiting gave him, if these two families can unite and ignore the consequences, they can pull out 100,000 wolves in at most two months.
When the soldiers come, they are all serious mountain elites who are capable of fighting. How can the Duke of Wei compare with this?
However, the Cen and Huang family are so powerful. If we talk about money... the imperial court's annual tribute requirement for Siming Mansion is only 795 taels of silver, while the requirement for Sicheng Prefecture is 1,040 taels (
Sicheng Prefecture is large in area and the Cen family is famous, so they suffer in this regard). Even if this is an indicator that does not include other "local specialties", it can still be seen that the two families are in financial embarrassment.
Even if the annual contributions of the Cen and Huang families were added together, it would not be a big deal in Gao Jingshi's eyes. Even exaggerating, Gao Jingshi suspected that if all the chieftains in Guangxi were added together, they would not be able to pay it in a year.
The tribute may only be more than 10,000 taels - at most 20,000.
Twenty thousand taels, haha... Tianjin Port does not count the revenue of the fleet. Just sitting in the port area collecting rent can almost earn 30,000 taels in two months. After excluding various expenses, it is still a little redundant.
Calculating a net profit of 10,000 taels per month is no problem at all.
Twenty thousand taels of silver is nothing more than two months' worth of sitting on land in Tianjin Port and collecting rent.
Therefore, Gao Pragmatic would never consider taking money from a chieftain as a benefit. The most valuable capital a chieftain has on hand is actually two things: land and wolf soldiers.
The land is of no use, at least to Gao Pragmatic. Not to mention that Gao Pragmatic basically doesn't know what advantageous minerals there are in western Guangxi and southern Guangxi. Even if he remembers it, he has no interest in mining it because safety cannot be guaranteed.
Secondly, the transportation is not very convenient.
Relatively speaking, Guinan, where the Huang family is located, is better. If you really want to have any advantageous products, you can transport them to Qinzhou via the Mingjiang River, and then transport them to Guangzhou by sea. That can be connected with the highly pragmatic Guangzhou private port. However,
He couldn't guarantee that the Huang family would cooperate with him honestly, so he didn't need to think about it for the time being.
As for the land of the Cen family in western Guangxi, although it can be connected to Qinzhou or even directly to Guangzhou through the Zuojiang-Pearl River water system, that has nothing to do with Gao Pragmatic. He has not traveled through time to become the chieftain of the Cen family, so he has no need to help them make money.
's doorway.
From this point of view, the only place where Cen may be useful to Gao Pragmatic is the wolf soldiers. But the wolf soldiers' strength is fighting, and Gao Pragmatic does not rebel. How can the wolf soldiers help him?
Therefore, the patrol inspection system still has its advantages. People like Gao Pragmatic, who are involved in a wide range of industries, can't find a foothold to form an interest alliance with the Guangxi local government.
Gao Jingshi, who had just sent Cen Ling away, suddenly slapped his forehead and said to himself: "How could I forget all my best skills! Although the chieftain was not very obedient, that was because the Ming Dynasty treated the chieftain very well.
It is just a source of orthodox name. Not only can the chieftain himself not benefit from the Ming Dynasty, but he has to make a sum of money every year, and even has to deal with the imperial conscription at any time. To this extent, the chieftain not only did the Ming Dynasty
His younger brother has to help the Ming Dynasty with work and even pay tribute... So he is obedient just because he can't beat the 'big brother', and he is disobedient just because the 'big brother' wants too much?"
Gao's pragmatic thoughts suddenly came to life, and he thought to himself: So, can I win over the chieftain through benefits, or even have a certain degree of control over the chieftain to some extent?
It's easy to win over them, since they are poor and I'm not short of money... But just giving money gives me so much control? Unless I can control their financial lifeline.
But judging from the current productivity of Liangjiang Tusi, their economic lifeline is nothing more than farming, and most of them are mountain fields. I am not interested in buying them if they let me buy them. This idea will definitely not work.
So, what if we create a new economic lifeline for them, make this lifeline even more important than farming, and then control this lifeline?
In theory, it should be feasible. The key question is what kind of "new lifeline" can replace farming and can be controlled by me...
The so-called control of the economy, in this era, is nothing more than two ideas: controlling production or controlling circulation.
Well, I'm afraid it's a bit difficult to control production. What if the chieftain doesn't listen to the instructions? Thousands or even tens of thousands of wolf soldiers will come over and control the production? Even if I have a mine protection team and a factory protection team like in the "base area" in the north.
I'm afraid it won't work very well.
After all, in the north, the main targets that these mine protection teams and factory protection teams have to guard against are bandits, bandits, thieves, and the like, and they are not government troops. Even in a large mining area or factory area, one or two thousand mine protection teams and factory protection teams are enough.
, but if it were replaced by Tusi Wolf Soldiers, they would be tens of thousands if they tried hard, and I am afraid that the mine protection team would not be able to handle them.
From this point of view, we can only consider controlling circulation.
Whether it is western Guangxi or southern Guangxi, it is characterized by mountainous terrain. If circulation relies on people carrying horses, tofu can be sold for the price of meat. Unless you open a soap factory yourself, how can you guarantee profits? There is no profit, how can we talk about it?
What new lifeline? But the soap factory cannot open in Guangxi. With Guangxi’s consumption power, how many soaps can it sell? Even if it wants to open, it can only open in Guangzhou.
Therefore, in terms of the geographical environment of Guangxi, the prerequisite for controlling circulation must be to control water trade routes. Because the characteristics of Guangxi's water system are very clear, that is, in addition to several rivers flowing northward from Guilin to Huguang (Hunan),
Almost all the rest flows eastward.
There are two ideas for heading east. One is to take the Pearl River to Guangdong no matter where you come from. The other idea is to go to Qinzhou first and then take the sea route.
We can put aside the issue of traveling along the Pearl River for a moment. As long as you have money, you can just build a large fleet to "compete with the people for profit." He is pragmatic and is not an emperor, but he is not afraid of others saying that he competes with the people for profit. Besides, he is pragmatic and not an emperor.
People who can say this are in the same category as him.
This is to control circulation by controlling transportation capacity. In fact, there is another way. As long as Xunzhou Prefecture, the convergence point of the left and right rivers in Guangxi, is controlled, the rivers leading to Guangdong by water will be locked.
It's just that this requires official support. It's not a problem when Gao Ying is working as a patrol inspector in Guangxi, but the patrol inspector generally doesn't stay in office for a long time. It's hard to say after he leaves. Therefore, although this method is hard-core, it is
The priority comes after controlling the fleet.
The real problem lies in Qinzhou. Qinzhou is under the rule of Lianzhou Prefecture, and in the Ming Dynasty, the entire Lianzhou Prefecture was administratively owned by Guangdong but not Guangxi. This means that the highly pragmatic Guangxi inspector cannot control Qinzhou. At the same time,
For this reason, Guangxi is now a serious inland province.
Transferring Lianzhou Prefecture directly to Guangxi is the best solution. Of course, Gao Jingshi immediately thought of this. However, this matter is a bit troublesome. Even with Gao Jingshi's energy at the top of the imperial court, it is uncertain whether he can succeed in Chengdu.
between.
In fact, during the Yuan Dynasty, Lianzhou was returned to Guangxi, and this administrative division was continued when the Ming Dynasty was first founded. However, the good times did not last long, and Japanese pirates (pirates) flourished, causing unrest along the coast during the Hongwu Dynasty.
At this time, since there were only Lianzhou and Qinzhou in the coastal part of Guangxi, the imperial court downgraded Qinzhou and assigned it to Lianzhou, and then packaged Lianzhou as a whole and assigned it to Guangdong. The reason was that Guangdong's navy was strong and it was assigned to Guangdong.
Afterwards, the actions to prevent and eliminate Japanese pirates (pirates) can be unified and directed.
From then on, Guangxi said goodbye to the sea.
However, the situation after Lianzhou Prefecture was transferred to Guangdong was not good, because for Guangdong, this place is the "extreme west of Guangdong". It is a separate piece of land, not an enclave but an enclave.
valued.
This has caused Lianzhou to not only lag behind in economic development, but also have a smaller and smaller population, and the coastal defense is not very reliable. It is still attacked by Japanese pirates when it should be attacked. Although the Guangdong Navy is relatively strong, it can
Could it be that he ignores the "core interests" near Guangzhou and instead keeps coming to your corner of Lianzhou?
Therefore, there were voices in the imperial court demanding that Lianzhou Prefecture be reassigned to Guangxi. However, there were two reasons why this voice did not become the mainstream.
The first reason is that Lianzhou produces salt and pearls and is known as "Jinshan Zhuhai, Emperor Nanku" (the "Zhuhai" is not Zhuhai). The imperial court set up the "Guangdong Haibei Salt Class Promotion Department" and "Guangdong Haibei Salt Class Promotion Department" in Lianzhou Prefecture.
"Separate inspections of sea roads were carried out to rectify the affairs of Admiral Lei Lian and Deputy Envoy Zhuchi". Among them, the Salt Class Promotion Department had fifteen salt fields under its jurisdiction, three of which belonged to Lianzhou Prefecture.
This means that if Lianzhou is to be transferred back to Guangxi, not only the corresponding administrative settings will have to be changed, but also the interests of Guangdong will be invaded - well, mainly the interests of Guangdong officials.
On the other hand, the problem of pearl pools is more certain to be solved by Gao Pragmatic. Because pearl fishing is a very dangerous occupation, and pearl farmers often die or get injured when fishing for pearls. In some cases when pearl fishing is not suitable, the court needs to force pearl fishing, and even more
It is a pillow record for casualties. Therefore, it has attracted the attention of local officials many times, and the Shangshu court requested rectification. Of course, the local officials mainly asked the court to remove the "Guardian Guarding Zhuchi" and suggested that it be managed by both military and military personnel. The reason is self-evident. Now. Now
Now that there is a "deputy envoy Zhuchi who patrols sea routes and rectifies admiral Lei Lian", it can be seen that civilian officials are still more powerful.