Hongwu Daming: Why hasn't my son rebelled?

Chapter 133 Incarnation of the Daming Envoys on the Spot

Hongwu nine years, October.

Incense burners filled the room with smoke.

Master Fobao sat in the meditation room and had been meditating all day.

He is sitting here, of course, not to comprehend some Buddhist truth, this kind of thing does not mean that he will not think about it.

But in the current chaotic world, if you really think about Buddhist philosophy wholeheartedly, you are probably already dead.

Just yesterday, he just received two messages, one from King Liang in Yunnan in the south, and one from Wang Baobao in Monan in the north.

The news was the same for him, that is, King Liang received a letter, which was written by him, the master of Buddha Treasure, saying that he was going to pay tribute to the Ming Dynasty.

To be honest, Master Fobao really has such a plan, but he is still hesitating.

But this news was seen by Liang Wang and Wang Baobao of the Northern Yuan Dynasty, so it would be terrible.

It would be fine if I really got in touch with the Ming Dynasty, and there is still a way to survive if I retreat [-] steps and directly attach to the Ming Dynasty.

The point is, isn't this not related to the Ming Dynasty?

Master Fobao is so worried, although Wang Baobao sent a letter to comfort himself, saying that this is just a conspiracy by the puppet imperial princes.

But this Northern Yuan Liang King was not polite to him at all, and the letter he came was full of questioning.

It would be fine if it was just the King of Liang in the Northern Yuan Dynasty, but the National Master Fobao was not worried.

But next to him, there was Andor.

Anduo's Tuyuan national teacher is fighting against him.

The entire Wusi Zang has been divided into two, and the Fobao National Master dreamed of bringing Anduo under his jurisdiction.

Why isn't Tu Yuan the national teacher?
As long as there is a chance, Tuyuan Guoshi will never let it go.

Isn't now the best opportunity?
The relationship between Tuyuan Guoshi and Northern Yuanliang King is good, if he takes this opportunity to ask Northern Yuanliang King for weapons and food, and then come to attack Kham.

It is not certain that Liang Wangbao of the Northern Yuan Dynasty would really agree.

Will Wang Baobao stop it?
Master Fobao doesn't think so, especially in the current situation.

Where did Wang Baobao get the extra power to stop Tu Yuan Guoshi's actions?
In addition, from Beiyuan's point of view, the combination of Khamba and Amdo in Uzang may be the most favorable situation at the moment.

Because of this, the Uzang area has enough power to tentatively launch an active attack on the Ming Dynasty!
Master Fobao thought about it for a day, and felt that the current situation could be said to be in jeopardy.

Once Tuyuan Guoshi attacked with the power of King Liang of the Northern Yuan Dynasty, everything would be over.

As for whether the anti-intermediary letter was sent by the Ming Dynasty, it probably should be.

And it is likely to be His Royal Highness, King Liao of the Ming Dynasty.

Only the Liao King of the Ming Dynasty could come up with such a conspiracy, right?

This is clearly to make myself seize the time to seek refuge with Daming.

In fact, it's not bad to seek refuge with Daming, after all, Fobao Guoshi is also a person who understands the current situation.

The current situation is quite favorable for Daming. Even if it continues to drag on for three to five years, Bei Yuan can't afford it.

Without the resources and technology of the Central Plains, Bei Yuan's life will only become more and more difficult.

It is also very unreliable to strengthen yourself by looting at the border of the Great Wall every year.

This Ming Dynasty is not the Song Dynasty!
Not to mention that Daming now has abundant martial virtues, even with Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures in hand, Daming's border defense capabilities cannot be compared with that of the Song Dynasty.

Not to mention that Daming is now full of stars, and the younger generation is also full of talents.

For example, the young Liao King of the Ming Dynasty who was less than 20 years old.

Thinking of King Liao of the Ming Dynasty, Master Fobao felt incredible. What were other people doing when they were 20 years old? Why is King Liao of the Ming Dynasty so fierce?

Under the age of 20, even Wang Baobao was defeated by him, let alone the Bohai War, which completely wiped out the Beiyuan Navy, which is really incredible.

The national master Fobao is still thinking about the problem here, and someone from outside hastily came over.

Master Fobao originally wanted to continue to meditate and retreat without seeing outsiders, but he heard the person outside say:
"National Teacher, the envoys of the Yuan Dynasty are here."

Master Fobao quickly stood up and asked:

"Is it from Monan? Or from Yunnan?"

The man replied:
"It's from Monan."

Only then did Master Fobao heave a sigh of relief. Now he doesn't want to deal with King Liang of Yunnan at all.

Now that the Beiyuan envoys have come, he must not continue to meditate here.

He hurriedly stood up and followed the people to meet the Beiyuan envoy.

When he came outside the bedroom, he saw the Beiyuan envoys waiting there, and when he saw Fobao Guoshi, he greeted him with a smile on his face.

It has to be said that Wang Baobao is very good at selecting candidates.

The envoy sent was a Han Chinese who could speak well, not only that, but he was also polite to Master Fobao.

And the reaction was very fast, directly sending envoys to appease Fobao Guoshi.

If it is an ordinary national teacher, he must be grateful at this time.

But Fobao Guoshi is not ordinary, he is a person who is very knowledgeable about current affairs, even though his face is full of gratitude at this time, his mouth is full of words of loyalty.

In fact, my heart is still beating up and down.

However, it is always a good thing to have envoys from the Northern Yuan Dynasty to visit.

The National Master Fobao arranged for people to take all the envoys of the Northern Yuan Dynasty to rest, and then held a banquet in the evening to treat them well.

After all the envoys went down, Master Fobao looked at the blue sky and sighed.

The road ahead is difficult.

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Fobao Guoshi is facing the biggest problem in his life.

Zhu Qi followed the team of the Shen family's caravan and brought Zhang Sanfeng and Bai Tang Yu'er to the boundary of Gaochang.

This Gaochang has a long history and was very famous as early as the Tang Dynasty.

But together with the Western Regions, there is finally an intersection of the Uzbek Plateau, a veritable regional, political, cultural and economic center.

Otherwise, Master Fobao would not have set the Zen seat here.

And as one of the terminus of the Ancient Tea Horse Road.

There are countless caravans coming and going from Gaochang, when they reach the gate of the city.

In addition to the Han Chinese and Uzbek caravans, Zhu Qi also saw many caravans from the Western Regions from the Arab world.

Just seeing so many caravans, Zhu Qi seemed to see a lot of taxes.

This is just to collect tariffs, and the wallet will explode.

But it is a pity that the tariffs in ancient China were extremely irregular.

The main reason is that tariffs and taxes taught by ordinary people are calculated together, or in other words, it is more appropriate to call them commercial taxes.

The ancient business tax was very simple. During the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, there was only one commodity tax.

That is, whether you are a citizen of Ming Dynasty or a caravan from outside, as long as your goods exceed a certain value, you will pay a tax of [-] out of [-].

Then it's gone.

And with such a low commercial tax, most of the time, more than half of it will fall into the pockets of local officials, and the remaining more than half will be avoided by the vested interests behind the caravan through various means.

For example, the notorious rule of being exempt from paying taxes.

Coupled with the chaotic functions of the tax authorities, the worrying professional level of the officials of the household department and other reasons.

In ancient times, taxation has always been based on agricultural taxation, which is the reason.

It is precisely because of this that those who say that ancient China can only collect agricultural taxes and cannot rely on commercial taxes because China is an agricultural country through and through are really farting.

According to historical records, before the opening of routes to the New World, the commercial activities of Chinese dynasties accounted for more than 50.00% of the world's commercial activities.

During the Song Dynasty, it even occupied more than 70%.

In other words, before the new route, one of every two commodity transactions in the world took place in China, or had a direct connection with China.

The economic center of the world has always been in the East.

Even after the opening of the New World, this share remained at 30.00% before the Opium War opened the country.

There is another obvious example that can refute this notion.

That is, after the Qing Dynasty experienced the Opium War, in order to allow the Qing Dynasty to have enough money to repay its debts, Britain sent a man named Hurd to guide the Qing Dynasty to collect tariffs.

According to historical records, until the 59th year of Qianlong, that is, in 1794, the revenue of the customs treasury was only a pitiful 400 million taels.

而在英国人指导以后，国库海关收入呈现指数级的增长，占到了晚晴财政总收入的1/4到1/3份额的3500多万两！
Wasn't the Qing Dynasty an agricultural country at that time?Not only is it an agricultural country, it has even been hammered into a semi-colonial and semi-feudal agricultural country.

Tariffs can still be collected so much.

You said that the DPRK cannot collect tariffs?
That's really bullshit.

But tax collection is also very particular. First of all, the tax department has to take it out of the household department alone, and then match it with professional accountants.

It is also necessary to equip a special supervisory agency, preferably directly under the emperor, such as Jinyiwei or something.

The personnel of the supervisory agency must of course have professional standards, that is, auditing.

Moreover, these institutions must also have established offices at the local level and be independent from local government departments.

This is the more scientific government tax collection function.

The Ministry of Household Affairs like the present one stopped it all at once, and the tax revenue depends entirely on the local government.

That's really enough for you to be greedy for corruption alone.

This is also one of the reasons why Zhu Yuanzhang killed corrupt officials, but repeatedly banned them.

Even the supervision methods are not professional, and corruption can be achieved with a little manipulation. Of course these officials will be corrupt.

So, the most unreliable thing in the world is to expect others to realize it.

Looking at the scene in front of him, Zhu Qi felt touched, thinking that he could discuss customs and taxes with Zhu Yuanzhang later.

But thinking that this was a big project, Zhu Qi felt a headache again.

When I first arrived in Gaochang, the first thing I did was to find a place to rest, and then to inquire about news.

As for selling the goods or something, that was no longer Shen Laosi's concern.

What kind of business are you still doing at this time, firmly hugging His Highness Liao Wang's thigh, and protecting His Highness Liao Wang's safety, isn't it a more profitable business than running the Ancient Tea Horse Road a hundred times?

Shen Laosi saw it very clearly, so he treated everyone as guards to protect the safety of His Royal Highness King Liao in all aspects.

Of course, there is still a need to put on a show. What if His Royal Highness King Liao changes his mind and wants to go back?

They had to buy horse mules and pretend they were returning caravans.

After Shen Lao Si had arranged everything, Zhu Qi asked them to inquire about the news.

There is only one thing that needs to be inquired about, and that is to see if there is any banquet to entertain important guests at the Zen seat recently.

Under normal circumstances, many merchants in the market that supply Zen seats can infer whether important customers have arrived based on recent orders.

This is not a difficult task, not to mention that in the Zen seat, there are likely to be many people with big tongues, love to show off, and other people who can't control their mouths.

Shen Laosi soon took people with him and used the name of the Shen family to inquire about information.

If you don’t ask, you don’t know, but when you inquire, you will be shocked. It’s really exactly what His Royal Highness Liao Wang said. Recently, a group of important guests really came to the meditation.

And these guests are none other than the envoys from Bei Yuan.

But the purpose of these envoys came, Shen Laosi was not very clear, and this was not something that could be found out just by asking.

After all, it is impossible for Master Fobao to talk about these things everywhere.

But Zhu Qi counted the time and guessed again, and he knew that these people must have come here under the orders of Wang Baobao or Northern Yuan Liang King.

After all, it has been almost two months since Liu Bowen wrote the letter to King Liang of the Northern Yuan Dynasty. No matter how slow the news is, it should be time for the results to come out.

Most likely it was the group of envoys sent by Wang Baobao to appease Master Fobao.

After knowing this information, the next step is to determine how to act.

After deliberating for a while, Zhu Qi made a bold and risky decision.

Since envoys have come to the Northern Yuan Dynasty, why can't Daming come to envoys?

As the King of Liao, he is not just the governor of the southwestern frontier defense. It is reasonable and reasonable to send a group of envoys to contact the Buddhist treasure national teacher of Uzang.

Second, let the envoys of the Northern Yuan Dynasty collide with each other, just to deepen the conspiracy!
Let Fobao Guoshi give up the swaying thoughts as soon as possible, and follow our Ming Dynasty wholeheartedly, that is the last word.

After Zhu Qi made up his mind, he did what he said, and told the matter to Shen Laosi and the others.

Shen Laosi immediately patted his chest and said, even if there are thousands of dangers, if he can serve Daming, he will die!
Zhu Qi was very moved. Whoever said that businessmen have no patriotism is just a small number of unscrupulous businessmen.

Most of the Han Chinese are absolutely patriotic at this time. You can see that Shen Laosi is very patriotic.

Can Old Shen Shen not be patriotic? Let alone the miraculous performance His Royal Highness Liao Wang showed earlier, Ge Erkama immediately let him go.

Even if he is counting on His Royal Highness Liao Wang to be the backer of his Shen family in the future, he must try his best to curry favor with His Royal Highness Liao Wang at this time.

Even if the two countries are at war, the envoys will not be beheaded, not to mention that Uzang and Daming have not yet started a war. Pretending to be a group of envoys to contact the Fobao National Teacher may not necessarily be life-threatening.

A group of people got ready, took the letter written by Zhu Qi, and then went to the Zen seat of Master Fobao...

(End of this chapter)