Haisheng Mingdi

Chapter 595 Yuan Cong Xunchen
The people in Zhejiang have also recovered quickly because of the liberalization of policy support. They are even more prosperous and lively than during the reign of Chongzhen. After all, the government has improved, the overall military situation is also very good, and foreign trade has been liberalized. Many foreign trade ports, such as tea, raw silk, and silk, have allowed them to develop rapidly.

And new industries such as shipbuilding, smelting, casting guns and guns are also developing very well.

Not only the gentry and tycoons have greatly increased their income, but also the farmers and artisans have greatly increased their income, but their burden has been greatly reduced.

Ruan Dacheng was in Zhejiang, and Ma Shiying was in Jiangnan. They not only vigorously encouraged the restoration and development of industry and commerce, they even took refugees from Jiangbei to the south and used the labor dividends of these refugees to improve local industry, commerce and manufacturing.

For example, in the Jiangnan area around Taihu Lake, if a farmer specializes in growing mulberry, he can plant about five acres, and if he specializes in rice, he can plant ten acres.

But although planting mulberry can grow five mu, women in a family can raise silkworms and reel silk at most no more than two mu, and even many silkworms can only raise one mu of mulberry. After all, women have to do housework and take care of children.

Therefore, family sericulture and silk reeling have great limitations, the main reason being the lack of family labor.

Ruan and Ma were in charge of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and they received a large number of refugees from Jiangbei, and then resettled them in various prefectures and counties. The men arranged to go into factories or go to mine or farm.

The women let them raise silkworms and weave cloth, etc., and set up many new workshops.

Many refugees were even placed directly in the homes of farmers in the south of the Yangtze River. The men gave their helpers to cultivate land, and the women raised silkworms and weaved cloth. These refugees were assigned to each household. An employment relationship is equivalent to a cooperative relationship arranged by a government organization.

The refugees had just moved south and had nothing, so they were resettled to farmers' homes, and they had a place to stay, and the government also reduced the burden of resettlement.

For farmers, or some small landlords, these people come, and they can share some of the hard-earned income, which is also a good thing.

For the government, in addition to reducing resettlement costs, it also increased the scale and output of family sericulture and silk weaving. Originally, if a farmer had ten mu of land and the family cultivated and weaved by themselves, they could grow at most nine mu of land and An acre of mulberries, but the income of growing grain is low.

Now if we plant five mu of fields and five mu of mulberry, and then raise dozens of baskets of silkworms, we can reel dozens of catties of silk or weave more than 100 bolts of silk, which will increase a lot of income.

Both farmers and refugees have gained a lot.

The government also obtained more raw silk or silk, export trade, and more tariffs.

It also resettled many refugees, providing them with the ability to support themselves, reducing the burden of resettlement, and even receiving some taxes from them immediately.

The workshops run by the government can attract more refugees, weave more silk, and spin more cotton cloth.

In the hands of Ma Ruan, the two governors who were called traitors by many people, the economy and taxation of Jiangsu and Zhejiang recovered quite quickly, and Zhu Yihai was provided with a large amount of tax money, and even the food supply was maintained very well.

Zhu Yihai doesn't care about Ma Ruan's previous reputation, what he cares about is their current ability to handle affairs, especially whether they can closely follow the central government and obey the emperor's will.

Ruan Shicheng did a good job, so he was directly promoted to Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, and Ma Shiying was also promoted to governor of Jiangnan and governor of Jiangsu, governor of the military administration of Jiangsu and Anhui provinces.

Now Ma Shiying is working very hard in the south of the Yangtze River. Suzhou City, which was demolished four times before, now has tens of thousands of looms and countless weavers. The cotton spinning industry in Songjiang and Shanghai is also very developed. Cotton was imported by sea merchants from the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and the United Kingdom, and then processed in cotton spinning processing centers such as Songjiang and Shanghai, spun into cotton cloth, and even made into garments. It was not only supplied to the mainland market of Ming Dynasty, but also sold back to Manila and Bada. Via, India, and even sold to Amsterdam in the Netherlands, Lisbon in Portugal, London in the UK, and even Mexico in the New World.

A large number of northern refugees were absorbed into these workshops, and exchanged their sweat for silver dollar wages, and then used the wages to buy food, and even some workshops directly provided food and housing. Although it was hard to enter the factory, at least there was no need to worry about famine and war , the family can settle down and have food and clothing, and the workshop can also provide a lot of tax revenue for the court every year.

The military uniforms of the Ming army such as Yuying also come from several major workshops in Songjiang and Shanghai. They are of good quality, fast and cheap.

When the Eight Banners of the Tartars were still running around in the north to enclose land, forcing people to invest in it, and even chasing fugitives everywhere, the south of the Yangtze River in the Ming Dynasty had once again bloomed in spring, business and industry were flourishing, and sailing ships lined up in and out of various ports, and the goods flowed all over the world. .

In Beijing, the Tartars couldn't even pay the food for the Eight Banners, and they couldn't even pay the salaries of the officials.

However, Daming’s current taxes and taxes are increasing year by year, hitting new highs repeatedly, collecting more than 3000 million shi for grain, land sales, deed tax, industrial and commercial tax, customs duties, special tax on salt, wine, tea and mines, tax donations, etc. 4000 million yuan.

Zhu Yihai was already refitting the imperial battalion with muskets and adding artillery, but the Tartars had completely stopped paying the green battalion. Even the Eight Banners garrison had to find a way to raise money and food by themselves.

At this point in the war, Zhu Yihai actually had no pressure at all, and just kept pushing along according to this rhythm.

So now he can still fight the war while asking Zhang Huangyan to return to Guangdong and focus on developing the economy and invigorating the industry and commerce.

Foshan Town is one of the four industrial and commercial towns in the late Ming Dynasty. Its iron smelting industry is well-developed and famous all over the world.Zhu Yihai specifically confessed that Foshan Town must be well protected, and more importantly, it must be run well. The iron smelting industry is very important, whether it is casting guns or armor, it cannot be separated.

Not to mention that the iron pot in Foshan Town is very famous abroad, and the name of Guangguo is spread far and wide in Nanyang. This is a best-selling product that earns foreign trade money, so it needs support.

After the emperor and his ministers passed smoothly.

Zhang Huangyan no longer said that he dared not accept the post of governor.

The emperor valued it so much, even relied on it, as a courtier, he could only bow down and die, so he had the nerve to refuse.

Zhu Yihai also kept Zhang Huangyan for dinner.

It is still a simple four dishes and one soup. Even if the economy is improving now, especially the emperor's Shaofu supervisor is very profitable and the inner palace is full, the emperor still insists on four dishes and one soup.

They also seldom cook delicacies. Last time, a new imperial chef said that his ancestors had a recipe handed down from the Tang Dynasty. It was often eaten by the Tang Dynasty emperors and nobles. It was called Hunyang Shenhu.

The method is to kill a goose, remove the hair, remove the internal organs, then mix the minced meat and glutinous rice with various seasonings, and then fill it into the goose belly.

Take another sheep, slaughter it, remove its hair and skin, remove its internal organs, put the goose into the belly of the sheep, sew it up with thread, and set it on fire to roast.After the mutton is cooked, open the seam, take out the goose and eat it together, which is called muddy sheep.

In some more refined ways of eating, chicken is placed in the belly of the goose, and pigeons are placed in the belly of the chicken.

This is said to be a dish, but it is directly roasting a camel and roasting a goose.

Zhu Yihai felt that it was too extravagant and wasteful, so he was not allowed to do it.

The emperor seldom even eats a whole roasted chicken or goose, and he will personally instruct him on how much to eat every day to prevent waste.

Like a meal with twelve dishes and eighteen dishes, how can I finish it?
If you can't finish eating, give it to concubines or servants. It's not clean and hygienic to let others drool.

Today's four dishes and one soup are also quite refreshing. There are still two meat and two vegetables, one steamed small yellow croaker, and one shredded pork with green peppers.

Looking at these dishes, Zhang Huangyan was very moved.

"In an ordinary family, the diet is far beyond this. Your Majesty's frugality is admired by the ministers." He said, "There are folk jokes, about a group of village women chatting while doing laundry, and about the empress of the East Palace spreading pancakes, and the empress of the West Palace peeling green onions. The emperor ate buns and pancakes every day.

When going up to court, there are buns on the left and big pancakes on the right. When the emperor is full, he will lie down on the dragon chair and bask in the sun. When he is hungry, he will get up and eat big pancakes and buns..."

Zhu Yihai couldn't help laughing when he said this.

For ordinary village girls and women who have no experience, poverty limits their imagination. The best things I have ever seen are buns and pancakes. I think the emperor is like this, and I can still eat it every day. It was a beautiful day .

And for those salt merchants and sea merchants, they may feel that the emperor eats 120 dishes in a meal every day at the feast of dragon liver, phoenix brain and fine nectar.

"I have heard that the salt merchants in Yangzhou are the richest and most extravagant. It costs two taels of silver to eat an egg. The hen that lays eggs eats Cordyceps ginseng every day. I dare to be so extravagant. A catty of pork is only a few tens of pennies , this egg is equivalent to the price of a pig."

Zhang Huang said, "During the reign of Emperor Wanli, the monthly food expenses in the palace were more than 3000 taels, not including all kinds of private stoves and small stoves. It was far less than the extravagance and waste of those salt merchants and sea merchants. A banquet for salt merchants can cost 500 taels of silver, the salt merchants love Yangzhou skinny horses, and some Yangzhou skinny horses that have been trained for a while can be sold for [-] taels of silver, which is equivalent to a hundred ordinary girls, but it is only half of their meal price That's all."

Zhu Yihai laughed and said, "This shows that their money is too easy to get, so they don't know how to cherish it when they spend it. Now under my Ming Dynasty's salt government and salt tax, which salt merchant can get money so easily, and who else dares to be so blatant? Show off your wealth?"

Zhang Huangyan nodded, no one would dare to do this now.

The emperor has four dishes and one soup every day, and he often publishes his own recipes in newspapers, and sometimes writes small articles on food reviews. Everyone in the world knows that the emperor does not like extravagance and opposes waste. Who dares to show off his wealth?
In the past, there were people who showed off their wealth in a high-profile manner, and were even unkind, but they were immediately investigated by the tax department, and then found out about tax evasion, land occupation, and bribery of officials. Into the prison of the Ministry of punishment.

The case was jointly tried by the three divisions, and finally it was decided that the family would be ransacked and executed, and the whole family would be exiled to Taiwan.

Since then, no one will die like this again.

(End of this chapter)