Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 2269 Economy and Party Struggle () Ming Royal Arsenal

Upon hearing this, Gao Pragmatic felt a little numb, and said quickly: "Your Majesty, we might as well discuss the reward later. The most urgent task is to finalize the Wanli three-style musket first. This matter is related to the combat power of the entire army, and it is also the reason why I am here today. The reason for this target practice.”

Zhu Yijun said in surprise: "Aren't you already a stereotype?"

It turned out that in the emperor's opinion, Gao Pragmatic had already taken a gun and tried shooting at the shooting range, and the shooting performance was excellent, so it was naturally considered "finalized". As for the bargaining just now, it was just about the price and did not affect the finalization of the gun itself.

This is obviously because the emperor did not understand the new business model dominated by high pragmatism. The current business model is demand-oriented, that is, the order is determined first and then production is arranged. If we arrange production before the order is confirmed, wouldn’t we lose a lot of money if we can’t sell it?

Don’t say that if you can’t sell it today, you can sell it tomorrow; if you can’t sell it this year, you can sell it next year. This statement is indeed a bit amateurish, because "inventory" will have cost losses-warehouse, warehouse management, maintenance, depreciation, everything is a cost. The reason why those large companies in later generations are crazy about inventory cycles is because the more mass-produced products, every day the inventory is reduced, it will reduce a lot of costs.

When it comes to Jinghua specifically, basically all departments are responsible for their own profits and losses. Although the ordnance industry is relatively unique in that it is not entirely responsible for its own profits and losses, making more money is still an important project for the ordnance industry group to claim credit from Gao Pragmatic, so even if it is Gao Pragmatic must also respect this and cannot easily touch the interests of his subordinates - especially the legitimate interests.

The longer any group, whether it is a business or a ruling group, exists and develops, it will generate more and more "interests for its subordinates." If this group wants to survive for a long time, it must have the courage and means to cut off unreasonable interests, but it must also ensure that reasonable interests are protected, otherwise this group will be close to death.

In the original history, the Ming Dynasty died because the "interests of its subordinates" changed from reasonable to unreasonable, and then the court continued to cut off these unreasonable interests. In the end, the unreasonable interests of the ruling group seriously encroached on the reasonable interests of ordinary people, so it was impossible to survive.

The essence of pragmatic reforms at the national level is to create some new reasonable interests, and then let the ruling group shift their attention to this new interest and slowly give up the previous unreasonable interests, thereby easing social conflicts.

This is not something that can be accomplished in three to five years. Gao pragmatism has been working on it for nearly thirty years, and it has only basically completed this goal among the large and powerful class, while only a small part of the small and medium-sized powerful class has begun this transformation. To put it simply, we have achieved a staged victory, but there is still a long way to go.

After all, the main beneficiaries of maritime trade are coastal areas. Even if the small and medium-sized elites in the vast inland areas are willing to accept high-pragmatic guidance, they are really out of reach. This also requires high pragmatism to find other ways to integrate them into the new economic activity framework.

But it is undoubtedly extremely difficult to do this because there are no trains these days. For example, if you want to sell goods from Shaanxi overseas, how do you do it? Although the Yellow River is the mother river of the Chinese nation, it not only has a bad temper, but its transportation capacity is also far inferior to that of the Yangtze River in the south.

In terms of runoff, the Yangtze River is 15.5 times that of the Yellow River, which was similar during the Ming Dynasty. And if you want to look at the transportation capacity data of the two in later generations, it is even more off - a difference of ten thousand times! The annual cargo throughput of the Yangtze River trunk line is 35 billion tons, while the Yellow River only has 30-60 tons.

This is why Jinghua's inland river shipping is extremely developed along the Yangtze River, so much so that the process of converting rice to mulberry on a large scale in the Jiangnan area is so pragmatic that it does not interfere at all - because Huguang's grain production is expanding crazily, and then transshipped to supply Jiangnan. So why did Huguang not expand production wildly before, but now it is willing to expand production? Of course it’s because the food can be transported!

In the past, most of the transportation was lost on the road. Even if it could be sold at a high price in the prosperous Jiangnan, in the end, it would not make much money at all. So who would be willing to expand production? Now that shipping has developed, thousands of sails and hundreds of boats are flowing on the Yangtze River. Transportation costs and transportation losses have dropped significantly. Huguang can make money from selling grain. Local people, whether they are landowners or small farmers, have a strong desire to expand production. Naturally, there will be To reclaim land that was originally considered unsuitable, and at the same time further cultivate it intensively to increase production.

The economy has always been linked to each other, and the driving force is profit. Exports are prosperous in the Jiangnan region, and industry and handicrafts are developing rapidly. They can earn a lot of silver from overseas trade. However, because they have all engaged in industry and handicrafts, the agricultural population has dropped sharply, so they need to buy grain from the inland, which has led to domestic China’s food production frenzy.

Of course, it’s not just food production, but also other raw material industries. But the problem Gao Pragmatic faces now is that the Yangtze River route is not a complete route. Only the east of the Three Gorges is the main channel, and the west of the Three Gorges is almost unconnected. Moreover, although most of the tributaries of the Yangtze River can be used, there are still some provinces in the south that are difficult to get a share of the pie - for example, how do you do it in Guizhou? You can't even do it in Fujian - fortunately, Fujian can rely on the sea to eat from the sea.

If you jump out of the "provincial" perspective, you will also find that areas such as southern Huguang (actually refers to southern Hunan), southern Jiangxi, northern Guangdong, etc. are actually areas where the Yangtze River and Pearl River routes are difficult to connect, and these areas combined In fact, it is the size of at least two provinces.

All in all, the Yangtze River is indeed the world's top shipping route given to the Chinese nation by God, but it is still beyond its reach and needs to be pragmatic and find its own solution. But in fact, before the emergence of trains, there was no good way to achieve substantial cost reduction and efficiency improvement.

Building roads is of course a solution. After all, if you can build roads in these areas to extend in all directions according to Qinzhidao standards, it will definitely greatly reduce the difficulty of transportation, at least much better than in the past. But the problem is that building roads is not an easy job!

Not only did Gao Wuchen not have the super strong organization and mobilization system of the later Red Dynasties, he even didn’t have the money—yes, just no money. Don't think that there is no cost in recruiting people to do corvee labor. The above areas have poor economic foundation due to underdeveloped transportation. You can mobilize them to do corvee service, but they don't have the financial resources to bring their own food. As the court, you must take care of the food.

But how much labor is required for such large-scale road construction? Can the imperial court manage the food of millions of people? Stop dreaming, obviously you can't care. Therefore, this is why Gao Pragmatic regards organizing local bridge construction and paving roads as one of the important criteria for being awarded the "Honorable Lord". No other, because the local gentry is really capable of building some local infrastructure.

Some people may ask, are these local infrastructure projects feasible? Of course it can be done. To be pragmatic, you just need to set standards - your road construction must reach this standard before I will include it in your "credit book" for conferring honors. Otherwise, your work will be in vain. You see, in this way, local standards can be unified, and the imperial court only needs to complete the infrastructure construction in various places, and then mobilize corvees to connect the roads everywhere, and the amount of work will be reduced by at least ten times.

Here are the characteristics of the Ming Dynasty: the court was so poor that even a mouse would shake its head when looking at it, but the private gentry were really rich. If you don't think of ways to get these gentry to spend the money, but instead keep asking the court to tighten their belts and engage in large-scale construction, isn't that just sacrificing the good and getting half the result with twice the result?

The only problem is that this process takes time and is definitely much slower than the unified dispatch of the court. But it doesn't matter, Gao Wushi knows that this matter can't be rushed, and with the foundation of the previous thirty years, Gao Wushi doesn't have to worry about Ming Dynasty suddenly dying suddenly. Therefore, let’s take as long as possible. Let’s take it one step at a time. Only by moving steadily can we go far. Ming Dynasty can afford to wait.

But having said that, the overall situation is still not optimistic - the south is easy to handle, but the north is difficult to handle. In the original history, the train was only invented in 1804, and it took decades after its invention to develop suddenly and explosively, so Gao Wuchen did not expect to be able to develop this thing at all.

However, he suddenly remembered something some time ago and realized that things might turn around. This is also the second thing he wants to tell the emperor today. Of course, the first thing must be determined first.

Gao Pragmatic briefly explained the business model of Jinghua Ordnance Industry to the emperor, and then said: "So to sum up, it is necessary for the Ministry of War to place an order and the first batch of advance payment to be received before Jinghua Ordnance Industry can finalize the shape and start preparations for the production line. Production. In addition, the ordnance industry group established separately by the imperial court can also obtain technical support from Jinghua Ordnance Industry during this period and determine the final production ratio between the two parties."

Zhu Yijun suddenly understood, but immediately became a little confused, and asked tentatively: "Who do you think should be in charge of this new arsenal? The Ministry of War or the inner court?"

Gao pragmatically shook his head and said: "The Ministry of War had better not directly interfere with the production work, because the Ministry of War itself has the responsibility of supervision. It cannot be both a referee and... well, I mean, it cannot supervise itself."

Zhu Yijun was very satisfied with this answer and immediately nodded in approval, but then asked: "But if it is left to the inner court, I'm afraid the Ministry of War cannot agree."

Of course, the civilian government was as protective against eunuchs as it was against fire. How could a super arsenal, which was to stand side by side with Beijing's ordnance industry, be left to eunuchs to manage? That would be even more intolerable than killing them.

Gao Jingshi really shook his head: "The inner court can't do it either. The inner court is a layman in these matters, and there are too many eunuchs in the outer court, which can easily cause trouble and have a negative impact on the reputation of the Tian family."

Zhu Yijun frowned and said, "What do you mean?"

"Leave it to the Governor's Office of the Fifth Army." Gao pragmatically said: "After the former Beijing camp was restructured, the Governor's Office of the Fifth Army began to take charge of military affairs and logistics. I think this is the best reform direction for the Governor's Office of the Fifth Army - they have not been responsible for a long time. It is already difficult to carry out the functions of fighting and commanding operations, but they have achieved remarkable results in managing the production and construction corps. I think that in the future, the Commander-in-Chief of the Fifth Army will be fully responsible for military logistics, and this arsenal is the first step."

"It's not unreasonable..." Zhu Yijun said, secretly thinking: It is indeed feasible for nobles to manage this arsenal, at least they don't have to worry about loyalty issues.

After making up his mind, Zhu Yijun paused and asked again: "How to name it?"

Gao pragmatically said indifferently: "Uh... let's call it the Ming Dynasty Royal Arsenal."

"Royal Arsenal?" Zhu Yijun touched his chin and frowned: "It sounds a bit weird...why do you need to use the word royal?" That is, this name is very normal in Europe, but it is probably unprecedented in the Ming Dynasty. .

Gao Pragmatic spread his hands: "How else can we convince the Ministry of War to ignore it?"

"Oh!" Zhu Yijun suddenly realized: "Because it is the 'Royal Arsenal', it is natural for me to leave it to the nobles to take care of it. Isn't this the truth?"

"Of course."
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