Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1915 Returning to Japan ([-]) Overturning the Front Vehicle
"That is to say, what the emperor wants is not the Daming Navy, but the Royal Fleet." Gao Yushi leaned his head on the back of the chair lightly, closed his eyes slightly and asked: "The emperor intends to pay this sum from within." As for the money, do you want the Ministry of Households to pay the money, or the Ministry of Households to pay part of it?"

"The emperor said that if such a large sum of money is all paid out by the Ministry of Household Affairs, even if you, Lord Hou, are loyal to the country and don't mind, you will definitely face huge pressure from the government and the public. This is naturally not what the emperor likes. I see, so the emperor wants to ask you..."

Liu Ping paid careful attention to Gao Pragmatic's expression, and said softly, "How much can the Ministry of Household pay at most?"

Gao Wushi didn't open his eyes, but just smiled, shook his head slightly and said, "Liu Ping, let me tell you this: If the emperor wants to rely entirely on the inner court to build a royal fleet, even if the household department only I'm afraid the cabinet department won't be able to get a tael of silver.

Or, the cabinet department can also take it out, but from then on, they can only resign resolutely, or even hang up their crowns, and just wander around the forest without asking about the affairs of the court. "

Liu Ping's complexion changed drastically, and he asked incredulously, "Master Ge is joking? With your unrivaled feats..."

"A meritorious service or an honor, but it's not a gold medal for avoiding death. What's more, even if it is a gold medal for avoiding death, Taizu didn't say that the gold medal for avoiding death has the ability to take the blame if there is a major demerit. Those who should resign must always resign."

Gao Wushi finally opened his eyes, reached out his hand to stop Liu Ping who was about to speak, and said calmly: "About this matter, you can just tell the emperor the exact words, and convey another sentence, just say that I never joke about such things, These words have no other meaning, they are simply stating facts.

Of course, please do not misunderstand the emperor, if the emperor decides to do it, the minister will still fully support him.This kind of support is not only willing to do its best to approve the appropriation by the Ministry of Household Affairs, but also to personally contribute and sponsor some...

If the emperor needs Jinghua Shipyard to contribute to building the fleet, I will also arrange the orders of the Royal Fleet at the forefront and let them complete them first.The above is the attitude of the minister, every word comes from the heart. "

Gao Yushi's words exceeded the emperor's expectations in all aspects. Liu Ping knew the emperor's attitude roughly, and of course he was very shocked and did not understand.

He didn't understand why Gao Yushi believed that as long as he helped the emperor, he would have to resign at the price of his resignation because of "this matter"; Afterwards, the official helped the emperor achieve this fleet with his own personal strength.

"Elder Ge, the slaves are dull, I really don't understand the reason for this, I wonder if the elders can give some pointers to clear up the confusion for the slaves, so that the slaves can talk to the emperor after they return to Beijing?" Liu Ping After all, he is Huang Mengyu's nephew, and he is confident and pragmatic, and he won't reveal any inside information.

"Actually, the emperor doesn't need you to explain it. Tell him what the cabinet has said. With the wisdom of the emperor, you can naturally guess the reason."

Gao Wushi said, glanced at Liu Ping, and sighed softly: "However, if you really don't understand, then... look back and think about why the foreign court resolutely stopped the voyage back then, and even later Liu Zhongxuan would rather take the risk. For the crime of deceiving the emperor, the papers related to voyages to the West will also be burned. When you understand these, you will naturally understand the meaning of this cabinet."

Liu Zhongxuan is Liu Daxia, Minister of the Ministry of War during the Hongzhi period. He was favored by Emperor Xiaozong and assisted Xiaozong to achieve "Hongzhi Zhongxing". Together with Wang Shu and Ma Wensheng, he was called the "Three Gentlemen of Hongzhi". The Three Masters of the Earth".

After Wu Zong ascended the throne, Liu Daxia repeatedly resigned and returned home with the title of Prince Taibao.When Liu Jin was in power, he was fined and garrisoned in Suzhou.In the fifth year of Zhengde, he returned to his hometown when he was amnesty, and immediately returned to his official position.In the 11th year of Zhengde, Liu Daxia passed away. At the age of 81, he was posthumously awarded the Taibao by the imperial court.

"Going to the West?" Liu Ping's heart moved, and his eyeballs began to roll.Gao Wushi glanced at him and sighed secretly in his heart. He wondered if Liu Ping could understand the truth, but Zhu Yijun must be able to understand it, right?
When later generations mention Zheng He's voyages to the West, they are often associated with "customers from all over the world" and "thick and thin". The great ocean voyage, which radiated Ming's political prestige and influence to the Western Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the eastern part of the continent, is indeed worthy of praise by future generations.

However, the opposition, represented by many court officials, has always insisted that voyages to the West are "a waste of money and people" and are not enough to make ends meet.After several twists and turns, the expedition to the West finally came to an end in the period of Emperor Xuanzong of the Ming Dynasty.

However, Zheng He's voyage to the Western Seas was really a move that only focused on political interests and not economic interests. Was it really ended because of the huge economic losses caused by not making enough?
Of course not. If we carefully examine the domestic political and economic situation in Ming Dynasty before and after Zheng He’s voyages, it is not difficult to find that the economic benefits brought by Zheng He’s voyages—especially the economic spillover effects are actually far greater than economic expenditures. , but a huge profit.

Then why was it resolutely stopped?Quite simply, although voyages to the West brought huge benefits, the distribution of the benefits by the interest groups in Daming was seriously unbalanced. In addition, the trade model of voyages to the West deviated from the laws of economics, which made voyages to the West itself difficult. The "bad governance" that followed, and was eventually completely abandoned.

Saying "huge profits" while saying "unsustainable" is not a high-level pragmatism, but the actual situation at that time.

At the beginning of his accession to the throne, Zhu Di ordered the eunuch Zheng He to lead the fleet to sail to the west. Desire to show off soldiers in foreign lands, to show China's prosperity."

Judging from the analysis of "History of the Ming Dynasty", Zheng He was ordered to form a fleet to sail to the West for two main reasons:

It was due to the fact that he was not in the right position. After he took the risk of attacking Nanjing to seize the throne, Emperor Jianwen was nowhere to be found. Zhu Di was not at ease.After all, there were many Chinese doing business and living in Southeast Asia at that time, so they planned to send Zheng He to the West to find the trace of Emperor Jianwen.

It was Zhu Di who, after taking the throne, planned to establish diplomatic relations with overseas countries and include them in the tributary system in order to demonstrate his orthodoxy.The dispatched fleet not only carried a large amount of hard currency such as porcelain and silk, but also stationed a large number of armed troops with the ship, showing the strength of the Ming Dynasty.

Judging from numerous historical materials, the main purpose of Zhu Di sending Zheng He to the West seems to be to promote the country's prestige and to show his status as a "kingdom of heaven".

Gong Zhen, who followed Zheng He on his voyages to the West, wrote "Western Fan Guozhi": "At the beginning of Yongle, the Chinese and foreign countries were ordered to follow the Western Sea countries to show their kindness and power, and to expand to the grand rules of saints."

Obviously, Emperor Yongle hoped to show the power of the Ming Dynasty through the huge fleet, to achieve the scene of "encouraging people from afar" and "all nations come to court" - this is not surprising, ancient China always regarded itself as "the kingdom of heaven" ", regard other countries and nations as "barbarians", and believe that all "barbarians" in the world should submit to the "celestial dynasty" and pay tribute to the "celestial dynasty".

This point is well-founded. For example, when Zheng He made his seventh voyage to the West, a monument recorded his purpose for the seven voyages to the West: Come to the court. The emperor praised his loyalty, ordered He and others to lead tens of thousands of troops from the official school, and took more than a hundred huge ships to send them with money, so Xuande transformed the people from far away."

But obviously, this statement is only superficial. If we really want to see the deep-seated reasons behind Zheng He's voyages, we have to start with the domestic and international situation during the Yongle Dynasty.

First of all, let's talk about the expenditures required for several major events during the Yongle period.

At the beginning of Zhu Di's accession to the throne, in addition to stabilizing the domestic people and stabilizing the ruling foundation, the border also faced thorny problems. The remnants of the Northern Yuan and Mongolian forces in the north were still strong and invaded the border from time to time. South Jiaozhi County also had the idea of ​​breaking away from the rule of the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, in order to further demonstrate his orthodoxy, in the third year of Yongle and the year of Yongle, Zhu Di personally conquered Mongolia five times, dispatching tens of thousands of troops each time.

In addition, Zhu Neng, the Duke of Cheng, and Zhang Fu, the Duke of England, were sent to conquer Annan four times; the capital was moved to Beijing, and millions of craftsmen and peasants were recruited to expand and build the Forbidden City, to overhaul Wudang, and to honor Emperor Zhenwu and so on.

All of these require a lot of manpower, material and financial resources. The money and food come from the national treasury, and the emperor's internal treasury on the other. Without enough sources of income, it is impossible to effectively support these achievements.

Secondly, the construction and maintenance of the huge Zheng He fleet also required great financial support and consumption.In order to complete the next voyage to the West, the imperial court had to pay a huge amount of financial resources for it, which is reflected in the following points:
It is on the shipbuilding expenditure side.The ocean-going ship Zheng He chose for his voyages had a load capacity of "4000 materials"—good guy, Jinghua's second-tier battleships such as the "Dongchang" only had [-] materials, but they were already giants in the East Asian seas , so what is the concept of five thousand materials?That is the estimated tonnage of the first-class battleship that Jinghua is still studying and finalizing.

Zheng He's fleet usually consisted of six or seven ships of the same type each time. In addition to the cost of craftsmen and material transportation, the cost of building an ocean-going fleet can be described as astronomical.

Of course, because the cost of Jinghua pure warships is actually much higher than that of civilian ships, the cost per ship of treasure ships is still much lower than that of Jinghua warships.One of the biggest reasons for the cost difference here is that there are a lot of expensive artillery on the Jinghua warship, so it is mainly the artillery that greatly increases the cost.

In addition, most of the workers employed in building treasure ships are military craftsmen, and the wages paid are naturally lower than those of commercial shipyards under the name of Gao Yushi. Much of the timber used to build treasure ships is directly felled in the military camp, and the cost is about the same as the freight, which is also lower than that obtained by Gao Yushi. much lower.

But even so, Luo Dengmao's "Sanbao Eunuch Western Records Romance" still wrote: "This ship has a large number, fine production, and praise for its large size. It must be enough to save money and food in the world."

So Gao Wuzhen's current ship can be sold so expensive, firstly, the cost is indeed much higher than Zhu Di, and secondly, the benefits of maritime trade are indeed too great, and the powerful and wealthy participating in maritime trade are not afraid of high costs.

is the cost of purchasing materials.Although Zheng He's voyages carried the important mission of "Xuanwei Overseas", it is also an important task to purchase goods with overseas countries.For this reason, before the fleet departed, the imperial court had to purchase large quantities of porcelain, silk and other goods.

Although the imperial court did not conduct purchases through market bargaining, it often used low-price purchases to exploit various craftsmen-this has also become an important incentive for future voyages to be criticized.However, the purchase of a huge amount of goods alone is already a huge expense.

The third is rewards to overseas countries and officers and soldiers on board.During the ocean voyage, Zheng He, in accordance with the imperial court's order, would reward the vassal states that recognized the tributary relationship.For example, "Ben Tang Bie Ji" records the rewards given by the imperial court to the king of Champa in the third year of Yongle:
"The king of Champa will be rewarded with one hundred taels of gold and 500 taels of gold. In six years, he will be rewarded with one hundred taels of gold and 500 taels of gold, five bolts of brocade gauze, and one hundred bolts of colorful silk."

In addition, due to the arduous task of sea navigation, the time is always several years, and the loss of officers and soldiers on board is relatively large.In order to motivate the generals, after each voyage back to the country, the emperor also gave large-scale rewards to the officers and soldiers of the fleet.For example, in the ninth year of Yongle, "ten thousand ingots and lottery coins, etc." were given at one time.

According to the textual research in the book "On Zheng He's Voyages to the West", only low-level crew members are rewarded with 10 ingots per person. Considering the scale of tens of thousands of people in the fleet each time, the reward of silver taels alone can at least reach or even exceed 30 ingots (one ingot is not only one or two).

It can be seen from the above two aspects that during the Yongle period, the Ming Dynasty conquered Mongolia five times and Jiaozhi four times, dredging canals and overhauling the city of Beijing.For a country that has just experienced the "Jing Nan" civil war, the cost is unimaginable.

Pushing the cost of going to the West is even more penetrating. If Zhu Di was just a simple and extravagant emperor, then he might indeed make such a move to show off his wealth as going to the West.

However, considering the huge manpower and material resources that will be spent on going west next time, the matter of spending money to buy noodles will only be done twice at most, not as many as six consecutive trips to the West during the Yongle Dynasty-this is no longer explained by the function of Daxi. It can only be said that unless Zhu Di is a psychopath.

However, a miraculous thing happened. According to historical records, although faced with huge expenses, and considering that the domestic war trauma caused by Zheng He's "Battle of Jingnan" during Zheng He's voyages had not been completely eliminated, the Ming court's financial The situation didn't get any worse.

"In the Yongle period, although Beijing was built, Jiaozhi was sought in the south, and deserts were conquered in the north, there was no lack of capital." - "History of Ming Dynasty·Huang Fu Chuan"

This is so strange, in the absence of effective expansion of domestic financial resources, Daming spent money without financial crisis?
Obviously, the only reasonable and credible explanation is that Zheng He's voyages to the West engaged in trade activities brought huge economic benefits to Ming Dynasty.It is this kind of economic benefit that maintained Zhu Di's huge expenses during his reign.

And according to preliminary calculations in the book "The Vicissitudes of the Tranquil Sea" edited by Lu Congdong, the open policy of overseas trade in the early Ming Dynasty, which was characterized by Zheng He's voyages to the West, brought huge wealth to the Ming court at least "over a thousand taels of silver and 3 taels of gold." .

This is what Gao Pragmatism believes is "huge profits".
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(End of this chapter)