Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 2314 Fengshan (Eleven) Ten Complete Achievements!

Autumn turns to winter, winter turns to spring, and another year has passed. Under the gentle caress of the spring breeze, the heart of the Ming Dynasty, the capital, gradually awakens. Just a few days after the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the sound of New Year's celebrations is still echoing in our ears, and a piece of news has spread among the people: Emperor Wanli will soon go south to Mount Tai to offer sacrifices to the gods.

Fengshan is not only a respect for heaven and earth, but also a magnificent display of the Wanli Restoration over the past thirty years. To this day, almost no one in the world dares to question the "Wanli Restoration", because after almost a year of all-round public opinion propaganda, not only the scholars, but even the peddlers and hawkers have clearly remembered the "Ten Complete Achievements" of the current Emperor Wanli.

The term "Ten Complete Achievements" was proposed by Gao Youshi, although Liu Xin, who was sitting in Tianzhu, privately commented that it was "bad taste" after hearing it. However, unlike Qianlong's so-called "Ten Complete Achievements", according to the summary of the propaganda mouthpiece headed by the Beijing newspaper industry, Wanli's current "Ten Complete Achievements" are really not nonsense, but objective facts that can be verified one by one.

  What are the "Ten Complete Achievements"? They are the following ten:

First, political stability: Thanks to your Majesty's great fortune, wisdom and judgment, as well as the efforts of many wise ministers including former prime minister Gao Gong and Guo Pu, and up to the current chief minister Gao Youshi, the power struggle within the court has been effectively controlled and balanced, making the politics of the country more stable and achieving unity from top to bottom, which laid the foundation for the current prosperity of the Ming Dynasty.

Second, economic development: Under the promotion of successive prime ministers, especially the current prime minister Gao Gongshi, the economy of the Ming Dynasty has made great progress. Agriculture, handicrafts and commerce have made significant progress, the state's fiscal revenue has increased, and the people's living standards have improved.

This point is particularly worth elaborating on: for example, in agriculture, it was Gao Youshi who introduced and promoted the planting and promotion of high-yield varieties such as corn and sweet potatoes, and experimented with and promoted drought-resistant rice from northeastern Japan in Liaodong. As a result, even though the northern part of the Ming Dynasty had suffered from disasters year after year in recent years, the worst situation did not occur. The increased grain production, combined with the court's proactive immigration and resettlement policy, minimized the losses caused by the disasters. Both the literati and the people called this event "unprecedented in history."

Not to mention the handicraft industry. Ever since Gao Youshi founded Jinghua under the guise of "practical learning in practice", Jinghua has been the leader in the development of new handicraft industry in the Ming Dynasty. It then led many officials' families of the practical learning school and northern merchants to become one of the supporting supply chains for various industries under its name. All parties began to develop together and promote each other.

Today, Jinghua has innumerable industrial sectors under its name, ranging from military industry to people's livelihood, and even dual-use, Jinghua is involved in almost all of them, but with some self-control.

This kind of self-control is particularly rare. For example, in some industries that only involve basic people's livelihood, Jinghua could obviously continue to develop by relying on its first-mover advantage, but Gao Yousi ordered them to be sold in batches and handed over to multiple private enterprises for free competition, and Jinghua did not monopolize.

The most famous one is Jinghua Soap. As the first key product of Gao Youshi, in the 20th year of Wanli, Gao Youshi made the basic formula of soap public, allowing local private enterprises to use it or develop new fragrances and categories to compete with each other. This incident, including some other similar incidents, is also an important reason why Gao Youshi was able to avoid many accusations in the literati and the people.

As for business, looking back now, the establishment of the Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance was a milestone event. It was not a "guild" in the traditional sense, and did not exclude or suppress internal competition, but it maintained itself as an integrated business group to the outside, so that the sickle of "internal harvest" of the families and enterprises within it was strongly suppressed, while the strength of "external harvest" was greatly enhanced.

  If this model is magnified to the national level, it is a bit like the so-called "mercantilism" in the West, which believes that the accumulation of national wealth is reflected in how much precious metal currency it earns from foreign countries. However, the situation in Western countries is different from that in the Ming Dynasty. Mercantilism has serious consequences for them - focusing on currency (precious metals) and neglecting physical goods often leads to uncontrolled domestic prices, and then the products lose their international competitiveness, which in turn curbs the development of productivity. [Note: Considering that everyone does not like to read "papers", I will not expand on this.]

However, the Ming Dynasty was different. The Ming Dynasty and even many periods in ancient China were often trapped by one thing: productivity was strong, but currency was seriously insufficient, or more precisely, heavy metal currency was seriously insufficient. This was very, very, very harmful to a country, especially its economy.

The problem caused by insufficient currency is not only inconvenience in transactions, especially large-scale, high-value transactions are difficult to complete. Insufficient currency will cause the value of currency to continue to rise while the purchasing power of the people continues to decline, thus reducing economic vitality. For example, why did the rich people in ancient China like to bury their silver and copper coins? In addition to the lack of "excellent investment targets", another point is that these "money" will become more and more "valuable" even if they are left alone, so of course you should leave the extra money alone, because you can make money anyway.

The money was buried, making private transactions more difficult, and the value of precious metal currencies further increased, making private economic vitality even weaker, and the vicious cycle could not be stopped. For the imperial court, the problem here was even more serious.

Why did ancient China often collect taxes in kind? Obviously, taxation in kind would waste a huge amount of manpower and material resources. For example, if you collect one million dan of grain and send it to the capital, several percent of it would be lost during transportation. But were all the courts of the past dynasties foolish and unable to see this? Of course they could see it, but they just couldn't solve it internally, because China's precious metal production was not enough compared to its actual productivity. How could you solve it internally? Turn stone into gold?

Why is maritime trade important? The commodity productivity of the Ming Dynasty was too strong but precious metals were insufficient. Maritime trade was to exchange commodities with overseas places with low productivity but abundant precious metals, and to exchange precious metals in return, so that the economy of the Ming Dynasty could achieve a balance between "money and goods".

  After this balance is achieved, as long as Gao Youshi controls the intensity and keeps the country in a state of extremely mild inflation, those who bury silver and copper coins will find that burying money is not cost-effective now. If you bury 1 taels of silver for a year, you will lose 2- taels. How can that work? You must dig out the money and invest it in a profitable business!

Therefore, most of them will join the positive economic cycle system created by Gao Yousi, either by introducing corn, sweet potatoes and drought-resistant rice to increase production capacity, or by engaging in supporting production of handicrafts in Jinghua, or by joining the commercial torrent to promote the circulation of goods - no matter what, it all meets Gao Yousi's expectations.

So, maritime trade is indeed for the purpose of making "money", but the root is not "money", but using this "money" to achieve economic balance within China. In his previous life, Gao Youshi had seen countless people doing maritime trade in novels, but he had not seen many who pointed out the key to the problem. Now, he has put it into practice himself.

Because this is a complete change in the economic operation model, not just a matter of getting some money back, it will take 20 to 30 years to lay the groundwork and gradually advance. Fortunately, everything seems to be going well.

Third, military strengthening: The Wanli Dynasty reformed the military system to a certain extent through the reform of the Beijing Camp, strengthening the training and management of the army at the Beijing Camp, i.e. the "central army" level, which significantly enhanced the military strength directly under the Ming court, consolidated the imperial power and made the political situation more stable.

In the early days, the establishment of the elite Imperial Guard not only improved the defense capabilities near the capital, but also enhanced external deterrence and actual combat capabilities, as can be seen from the war to destroy the Yuan Dynasty.

As for the border troops or local troops, Gao Youshi was unable to intervene too much in the early days and could only provide them with "warm-up" in terms of logistics and weapons. Even so, the combat effectiveness of the border troops in various places has obviously shown a gratifying situation of gradual improvement. The tiered military reform plan proposed by Gao Youshi not long ago, such as the Type A and Type B troops, is a manifestation of the further deepening of military reform.

There are too many achievements of military reform. In the years of Wanli Dynasty, Annan, Bei, Dong, Xi, and even "pacification of the interior" were achieved. Which battle did not benefit from the success of military reform? Fourth, cultural prosperity: In terms of cultural education, Wanli Dynasty also made considerable achievements. Although there is still a major project that has not been completed in the imperial examination system, Gao Youshi has successfully made a small patch for the imperial examination: first, the "ten-point system" was implemented, and then an "extra supplementary item for the same score" was given.

That is, the imperial examination now uses a scoring system, with 10 being the full score. The test questions are the same as before, nominally testing the Four Books and Five Classics, but in reality the test focuses on the Four Books, especially the Classics. Gao Youshi's real fix is ​​the "extra supplementary items for the same score" at the end, that is, if two or more candidates have the same score, for example 10, then they will compare the score in the "additional test subjects".

What are the additional subjects? For example, mathematics. This is one of the "additional" subjects added by Gao Youshi. Although Gao Youshi added several additional subjects, each candidate can only take one additional subject in the first round of examinations. Unless the main examination and the additional examination still have the same score, there will be no second round of examinations - the second round will continue to take one additional subject, and so on.

The purpose of this "imperial examination patch" is obvious. Scholars can no longer only write moral articles as before, because various "practical application" subjects will determine whether you pass the exam. Although this has aggravated the "involution" among scholars to some extent, Gao Youshi believes that this "involution" is beneficial.

In the past, even if officials were selected, the court did not know what their strengths were. They might not know anything except morals and articles. When they arrived at the local level, they could only be manipulated by the clerks. When they arrived at the central government, they could not do anything and were always involved in party struggles. Now, the strengths of officials are much clearer in the eyes of the court, so naturally they can better use their talents.

In addition, due to the improvement of the court's finances, Gao Youshi allocated special funds to improve the school buildings and teaching staff at all levels of schools (these existed in the Ming Dynasty and are introduced in the first volume of this book). This played a great role in the popularization of education, especially for poor students, making the cultural atmosphere of the Ming Dynasty more profound and attracting more and more literati and poets.

Especially the expansion of territory in recent years has made today's literati and poets gradually regain the heroism of the prosperous Tang Dynasty. "Frontier literature" has flourished again, and "overseas literature" has emerged, bringing cultural creation to a new peak.

Fifth, diplomatic expansion: In terms of foreign relations, the Wanli Dynasty established good relations with neighboring countries and tribes through an active diplomatic policy, expanding the influence of the Ming Dynasty. Whether it was the tribute of the Tumed and Ordos tribes, the conquest of the Eastern Mongolian grasslands, the submission of Korea, or the recovery of the Western Regions, they were all concrete manifestations of the "Ming Dynasty's power."

Of course, those tributary states in the south that used to come and go have now become the most well-behaved vassal states, paying tribute in strict accordance with the requirements of the court, because Gao Youshi has actually completed the control over them through Jinghua.

No matter how many tricks there are, at least in the eyes of the imperial court - and even in the eyes of the scholars and the people, the current tributary states are completely obedient to "our Celestial Empire" and dare not act on their own. As the newspapers in Beijing publicized: "Since ancient times, there has been no greater great cause than this."

Sixth, social governance: In fact, the root of social governance is the official system. After Gao Youshi took office as the Minister of Finance in the Wanli Dynasty, he strengthened the financial management and control of local governments, effectively reduced the corruption of local officials, improved the credibility and execution of government offices at all levels, and made social order more stable.

For example, now many revenues and expenditures of local government offices are audited by commissioners dispatched by the Ministry of Revenue. These commissioners were hired by the Ministry of Revenue from the Finance Department of the Beijing Craftsmen School after the "Greater Ministry of Revenue Reform". They are not officials, or even clerks. In theory, they only have an "employer and employee" relationship with the Ministry of Revenue. They can be regarded as what later generations called "third-party investigations", and the possibility of objectivity and neutrality is greatly increased.

Gao Youshi also took into account that these people might also be bribed by local government offices, so he made another patch to strengthen the internal competition: if the finances of a local government office had passed the audit, but were later discovered by touring censors or problems were uncovered through other means, the financial commissioner sent to investigate in the early stage would be held responsible.

If the finances are clean, the civil service system will be clean, and if the civil service system is clean, the whole country will be clean. Gao Youshi has always served as the Minister of Revenue, hoping to establish norms for the Ming Dynasty and form policy inertia through his long-term tenure. In this way, even if he leaves office in the future, these optimization measures will not be forgotten immediately.

Seventh, technological innovation: In terms of science and technology, the Wanli Dynasty certainly made great achievements. Gao Youshi strongly encouraged technological innovation and process improvement not only in Beijing, but also in the court and among the people, promoting technological progress in agriculture, handicrafts, and military fields. There are too many specific achievements in this regard to list them one by one [Note: mainly too many, it would take up too much space].

Eighth, improvement of people's livelihood: This is the most direct aspect for ordinary people. After Gao Youshi came to power, the court invested a lot of efforts in disaster prevention, disaster relief, disaster relief, and post-disaster reconstruction, which was much better than the past when the court ignored (had no ability to care), which was a world of difference.

In addition, reforms of varying degrees in taxation, water conservancy, salt laws, etc., as well as measures such as allowing local gentry to take the initiative to build bridges and roads under the "honor" system, ultimately improved people's living conditions, increased people's satisfaction and loyalty, and strengthened their centripetal force towards the court.

Ninth, the construction of the legal system: China after the Han Dynasty was often "Confucian in appearance but legalistic in nature", but the "rule of law" was never positively recognized by the court. Gao Yousi, relying on his "orthodox Confucian" background and the reputation of "six top scorers in the imperial examination", dared to face up to the importance of legal system construction, and added, revised and improved many legal systems, making the country's governance more standardized and orderly, and reducing social contradictions and conflicts.

Tenth, the fusion of civilizations: In terms of sects and culture, the Wanli Dynasty also made some achievements. Through various means such as military conquest, economic and cultural attraction, it accomplished a huge feat of expanding territory. Then, with China's unique eclecticism and cultural tolerance, it promoted the exchange and integration of different sects and cultures, which not only enhanced the inclusiveness and diversity of the entire Ming society, but also did not indulge, bringing together various civilizations within the main body of Han civilization - note that it is within, not under.

These "Ten Complete Achievements" together constituted the revival of the Wanli Dynasty during its thirty years, enabling the Ming Dynasty to achieve remarkable progress and development in all aspects.

  With the victory of the Western Expedition, the "Ten Complete Achievements" have now been accomplished. It is indeed time to offer sacrifices to the gods on Mount Tai and announce the revival of the country to heaven, earth and all the people!

On the day of the imperial carriage's departure, the streets of the capital were already crowded with people at dawn. The people were dressed in festive attire, waving their hands high, with expectant smiles on their faces. They knew that what they saw today would be a spectacular scene that they would never forget.
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PS: I didn’t expect that writing a summary would be so difficult. I checked the “information” I wrote myself, and this feeling… is very subtle.