Jinyi champion

Chapter 826 The Emperor Who Can Bargain
The next day.

Zhu Si dragged his "sick body" to the court meeting, coughed from time to time while sitting on the dragon chair, and lacked interest in what the ministers discussed.

In this court meeting, no one mentioned the matter of mining.

Lin Jun, as the "stab head" at the court meeting two days ago, was instructed by Yang Tinghe not to come out to express his opinions this time. Even the thorn head was suppressed, so naturally no one came out to find fault.

At the end of the court meeting, Zhang Zuo sent a message to invite Yang Tinghe, Jiang Mian, Sun Jiao, Shangshu of the Ministry of Households, and Zhao Huang, Shangshu of the Ministry of Industry, to the Qianqing Palace to discuss matters.

What was being discussed, anyone with a discerning eye could tell that it was related to the mining matter. The two factions each found two people. Zhao Huang could not be regarded as Sun Jiao's person in a strict sense, but it was rare that Zhao Huang belonged to the neutral faction among the civil servants in the court. As for Yang Tinghe's side, he was called a Bachelor of Cifu University.

On the contrary, Lin Jun, who had provoked the incident before, was not invited to participate in the discussion, which was regarded as a punishment for him.

Qianqing Palace.

In front of Sun Jiao and Yang Tinghe, Zhu Si expressed his thoughts clearly and unmistakably.

"...I agree to let the prefect of Yongping Prefecture take care of the local iron mines, but the premise is that Zhu Hao, the prefect of Yongping Prefecture, should be directly under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Households, and the Ministry of Households and the Ministry of Industry will each send a chief to be in charge. The specific mining matters. The Ministry of Households supervises the accounts, while the Ministry of Industry supervises the construction.”

Zhu Si's speech was not fast, but his words were calm and powerful.

Jiang Mian knew that this was an agreement reached by Yang Tinghe, Sun Jiao, and the emperor. He originally had a lot of opinions to raise, but at this time he could only hold back.

Sun Jiao asked for instructions: "The old minister asks for an order. After Zhu Hao, the prefect of Yongping Prefecture, ends his term of office, he will be transferred to the household department and be appointed by the household department, and he will be given a matching official position."

As soon as these words came out, the three ministers at the scene looked at Sun Jiao with strange eyes.

Not only did you openly recruit Zhu Hao to become your henchman, but you also directly asked the emperor to let Zhu Hao enter the household department in the future and get a guarantee for his official career?
You, Sun Zhitong, keep saying that you don't want to be involved in court disputes, you really mean it!
Zhu Sidao: "Since Sun Qing's family asked so, I have to agree. If Zhu Hao resigns as the magistrate of Yongping Prefecture, at least he will be a doctor of the household department when he returns to the court."

The emperor discussed personnel changes directly with the ministers without going through the official department, and regarded the first assistant and second assistant university scholars as transparent people... Is this really good?
"What's Elder Yang Ge's opinion on this?"

Zhu Si asked Yang Tinghe in a decent manner.

Yang Tinghe said: "The veteran has no objection."

Meaning, even if it's a little unreasonable, I'll accept it.

Sun Jiaodao: "Your Majesty, if two persons from the Ministry of Household Affairs and the Ministry of Industry go to take care of the mine, I don't know whose opinion should be the main one? I'm afraid... there will be disputes over the division of labor."

Using the six court officials to go to the local government to take care of a certain matter, and also cooperate with the local prefect... It is easy to say, but in practice, there will be differences in the three or dominant opinions.

Zhu Sidao: "Let's take the local prefect as the head. Even if the Ministry of Household Affairs and the Ministry of Industry send principals, they will only go to supervise occasionally, and there is no need to stay at the mine all the time."

The emperor's words are tantamount to highlighting Zhu Hao's dominance in mining.

Zhao Huang, Shangshu of the Ministry of Industry, interrupted suddenly and asked, "Now that the iron mine in Yongping Mansion has been settled, what about the Xishan Coal Mine?"

The atmosphere in Qianqing Palace suddenly became tense.

Well done, even Yang Tinghe and Jiang Mian didn't mention it, Zhao Huang, who has never been close to Yang Tinghe, unexpectedly asked a fatal question at a critical moment, do you want to get involved in the dispute between the two factions?

Even Sun Jiao felt that Zhao Huang's question was a bit inappropriate.

Zhu Si seemed to have expected this scene to happen.

We were talking about an iron mine before, but now we are talking about the Xishan Coal Mine. Should we also talk about other mines that the emperor will open in the future?

Zhu Sidao: "Xishan Coal Mine, my people have always taken care of it well. I didn't do it first. There were many coal kilns in Xishan before, and the coal produced was mostly used for heating and cooking for the people in the capital and surrounding counties. I am here A lot of painstaking efforts and money have been spent on the Xishan Coal Kiln, if I want to transfer it directly to the Ministry of Households, wouldn't it be inappropriate?"

The meaning revealed in the words is that this matter can still be discussed, but a condition that satisfies me must be set.

Jiang Mian clasped his hands and said, "Your Majesty, mines are laborious and costly to the people, and can easily endanger the stability of the place. I ask your Majesty to put an end to the mining of middle officials and Jin Yiwei, and strictly prevent government offices at all levels from participating in specific matters."

Zhu Sidao: "That means that if a vein with huge reserves is discovered in the future, it will not be mined, right? How many mines are there now, keep a fixed number, and they will not be added in the future?"

Jiang Mian replied without even thinking: "Yes."

This sounds extremely unreasonable to Zhu Si, but it seems reasonable in the eyes of civil servants.

Since ancient times, civil servants have been in power like this, adhering to an established principle, keeping the old without knowing how to adapt, and paying attention to everything following the rules...

Even if the rules are very unreasonable, but if they don’t change, whoever reforms will be a sinner, and the civil servants will rush forward to attack. Even if they can’t change for a while, they will attack in groups after the reformers lose their power, causing people to perish.

This is also an important reason why Chinese society has stagnated in science and technology for thousands of years.

Zhu Si smiled and said: "Okay, old Yang Ge set the rules for me before, and I can't open new mines, but now Jiang Ge's old matter is brought up again... The Ministry of Households has not allocated me a couple of mines in the past two years. Silver, right? If it harms the locality...the Xishan Coal Mine was originally there, and now the Yongping Prefecture Iron Mine is also managed by the Ministry of Households, the Ministry of Industry and the local government, have I not crossed the line?"

It was rare for the emperor to be able to laugh at this time.

This time, Sun Jiao looked at the little emperor with admiration.

The young emperor has a pretty good mentality.

Jiang Mian said: "Your Majesty should not go to take care of the Xishan Coal Kiln as Zhongguan and Jinyiwei."

Zhu Si smiled and shook his head: "I have said that, from the exploration to the completion of the Xishan Coal Mine, and now to the large-scale mining, it is all done by my people. Let me directly hand it over to the Ministry of Households to take care of it. I have lost too much Unless... I have an idea, didn't I say to build a train earlier? Now the trains around Xishan are more than ten miles long, and I plan to erect the train from Xishan to the capital, but there is still a shortage of money..."

When Yang Tinghe and Jiang Mian heard this, they couldn't help muttering in their hearts.

Was it waiting for us here?
Let’s just say that you can’t do the iron bumps and railways with your own ability, so how much manpower and material resources will it take?Now that you are short of money, you want to hand over the coal mine in exchange for the support of the Ministry of Households?

Think beautiful!
Jiang Mian hurriedly said: "Your Majesty, such things waste money and people..."

"Mr. Jiang Ge, don't worry, just listen to me."

Zhu Sidao, "I meant that I was short of money, but I didn't say that the court and the local government would transfer it. I wanted merchants to contribute money and efforts to help me complete the construction of the railway."

Jiang Mian smiled wryly.

Let the merchants pay again?

In the eyes of the emperor, are those merchants all fools?
When mining, find some mines that have just been explored and have not yet been officially excavated, and directly find merchants to participate in the auction. Now you want to build a railway and train that will not see any profit at all, and you want merchants to pay?

Don't you think that the money of merchants' houses is blown by strong winds?
Yang Tinghe finally spoke and asked, "Your Majesty, I wonder how much money your Majesty plans to raise for this matter?"

Zhu Si was about to snap his fingers in front of several ministers, but finally gave up, and said to Zhang Zuo beside him, "You tell me."

Zhang Zuo said with a smile: "Several officials, it's like this. Someone calculated for His Majesty that it would cost 80 taels of silver to complete all of this. Now the steel and coal produced by His Majesty through mining, as well as the manpower currently allocated, are roughly equivalent to 40 taels of silver." [-] taels of silver, still missing... half."

Missing half?
40 million taels?

The Northwest fought a war last year, and allocated a dozen or 20 taels of silver, and the court quarreled every day. Your emperor is really good at messing with feelings, and you want to get 40 taels of silver?
Do you really think that money can be obtained casually?

It is bragging to say that the existing manpower and material resources are equivalent to half of 40 taels?

Zhu Sidao: "My idea is this. I only raise 40 taels, which can guarantee the erection of the railway, but cannot guarantee the construction of more trains, so I plan to raise 60 taels at a time... At present, what I can provide is 40 taels." Two, but it is equivalent to 20 taels in terms of design and operation. I intend to hand over half of the operation rights of the railway to merchants, and in exchange for them to contribute money and efforts to support it.”

Yang Tinghe was very angry when he heard this.

Although it sounds nonsense to build railways and trains, the emperor opened his mouth to hand over this stuff to businessmen, which means that in the future, in terms of railways and trains, do you plan to distribute power to those profit-seeking businessmen?
Jiang Mian came forward and said: "Your Majesty, I'm afraid it's not right?"

"Wait for me to finish speaking."

Zhu Si added, "Railway, this thing doesn't see any benefit, not to mention you, even I feel that there is a great possibility of losing money. It is very likely that in a few years, this railway and train will be completely useless... My It means to hand over ten years of operation rights, and after ten years, all the proceeds will go to the imperial court. If you agree, I will agree to hand over the Xishan Coal Kiln to the Ministry of Households to take care of it."

After Jiang Mian listened, he could only look at Yang Tinghe with consulting eyes.

Now the little emperor has analyzed it himself. Trains and railways are very strange. If merchants are really willing to invest, then the court will not have to bear any trial and error costs.

After all, from the very beginning, the imperial court did not pay a penny for the railway. Now the emperor is still using the right to operate the Xishan Coal Mine in exchange for the support of several ministers present. It seems that the emperor has not made much money from this matter.

Then... you can consider accepting it.

Yang Tinghe was silent for a while, and asked, "Your Majesty, even merchants are unwilling to contribute to such matters."

"Ha ha."

Zhu Si smiled and said, "You don't have to worry about the issue of whether to contribute or not. I plan to let Tang Yin go to the private sector to raise money. He is close to Huizhou merchants. It is most suitable for him to come forward. And as long as you agree, I will Immediately hand over the Xishan Coal Kiln to the Ministry of Households to take care of it, you can choose!"

(End of this chapter)