Haisheng Mingdi

Chapter 874 The King of Han
The fiefdom of the King of Han is in Huangnan, Qinghai. This is a good place, suitable for farming and animal husbandry, although it is a bit remote, but at least it is much better than the old Jiuning King's territory.

King Ning, who is now seven years old, is enfeoffed far away in Yongning, where the slaves work. Ports, such as Dengzhou, Qingdao, Lushun, Dalian, Dandong, Jeju, Wudao, Tsushima, Hamgyong, Chongjin, Hunchun, Vladivostok, Huyek, Sakhalin, Yongning, Qudumei Zhugang, Vladivostok and Yongning They are all important military towns and trade centers where tens of thousands of immigrants and natives gathered, but they are too far away after all. Apart from adventurous hunters and fur traders, most of them are exiled criminals.

For the dignified prince and prince, enfeoffing Yongning as the domain is no different from exile.

"Confess Qinghai as a feudal clan, and reside in Guinan as a feudal clan? Your Majesty only promised to build a Han City and Hanwang Mansion for His Highness, and nothing else?"

"What about the common people? What about the royal guards?"

Shen Hongbang, the attendant of the King of the Han Dynasty, did not show much happiness for his brother-in-law's feudal status in Guinan. It is as big as a mansion in Zhejiang.

But land alone is not enough. Qinghai is not Zhejiang, and Guinan is not Ningbo.

Shen Hongbang is the son of Shen Chenquan, a scholar. His hometown is Guanhaiwei, Ningbo. It is the land of Ningshao Plain in eastern Zhejiang, a land of fish and rice along the coast of the river, and the benefits of fishing and salt shipping. The ancestor of the Shen family resigned from office in the Southern Song Dynasty and lived in seclusion in Cixiguan. Hai, founded the Haiyu Bookstore, taught apprentices and lectured, and cultivated and studied family heirs. In the Ming Dynasty, it was already a well-known local gentry.

Shenshiqiao, where their family is located, is also a well-known local commercial town, half of the shops in the town belong to the Shen family, and countless lands around it once belonged to the Shen family.

Although Shen Hongbang was enlightened to study early and determined to take the imperial examination, he was not an ordinary student from a poor family. He only knew how to study stereotyped writing, and he also did some research in economics, business and so on.

He knew very well that the fiefdom of the King of Han was okay, but if there was only one piece of land, it wouldn't work if there were no people.

This person not only includes the guard army, but also refers to the tenants and subjects. If there is no one, even if there are 1000 million mu of arable land, they are dead.

One million mu of arable land is actually no more than 100 hectares of land, and it is not cultivated land, let alone there are no farmers now, so what is the use of having more land?

"Your Majesty told me to recruit immigrants and herdsmen. He also said that I could also buy some slaves. He also said that these fiefs can be exempted from taxes for ten years."

"My lord, how can it be so easy to recruit people? Now it is difficult to recruit tenants in the mainland, and the lord is far away in Heyuan, so it is even more difficult to recruit immigrants. The imperial court immigrates to the frontier, that is to directly grant the land, your highness? We also want to grant the land, but if the land is allotted, won’t His Highness be gone?”

Zhu Hongju was not in a hurry, and said with a smile, "Your Majesty said that there are mines over there, we can first go to the mainland to attract investment and cooperate in mining, and then we can build some manors in Guinan to buy slaves and plant them, and we can also recruit some merchants to come and do business. .”

"It's not that easy. Whether it's the mainland of the Central Plains, the coastal ports, or the frontiers, what's most lacking is people."

The Shen family has a large property. The family is a well-known landowner in Ningbo, and has long been involved in business and even maritime trade. Over the years, the Shen family, a family of heroes and heroes, has become an important member of the Eastern Zhejiang Xunchen Group. , In several major fields such as military industry and maritime trade, there has been very good development.

It can be said that the family has a big business.

They even have their own plantations overseas, but they are also short of people, a serious shortage of people. The Shen family was also the first to start buying a large number of slaves to fill the manor and workshop labor shortages, but they still face a serious labor shortage. Now it has become the main problem faced by almost all powerful landlords and even big merchants.

Therefore, from this point of view, in the past few years in the Shaotian Dynasty, there has actually been a secret dispute between the upper echelons, that is, to expand or not to expand, especially the policy of immigration to expand the border, which caused a large number of inland population to flow out, making the Those powerful landlords and business owners do not have cheap and sufficient labor.

The new capital and the new business policy will inevitably eat people. The landlords will strengthen the annexation of land, causing more farmers to lose their land, turning some farmers into tenants, and squeezing more land-lost farmers into cities to work as hired workers. , enter the workshop into the mine, and become an industrial employee.

But now the imperial court is actively expanding the border, laying down new territories one after another, and then dividing the land there for immigrants, with tens or even hundreds of acres for each family, attracting many people to come over.

Compared with staying in the inland as tenants or working for businessmen, apparently traditional Chinese people feel more secure when they have a piece of land of their own. In the end, between moving away from home and a large piece of land of their own, the more More and more people migrated out.

And the people left in the inland, also because of the great changes that almost changed the dynasty from the Chongzhen to the Shaotian Dynasty, finally adjusted the land on a large scale, and many people were also allocated or bought official land and became self-cultivated farmers.Many landlords spit out the official land and private land that were illegally annexed and occupied in the past, and a large number of official land from the former royal family, vassal kings, guards, and government offices were distributed to the people, increasing many self-cultivating farmers.

There were loud voices of opposition from folk landlords, powerful scholars, bureaucrats and businessmen, but the emperor simply engaged in a few big cases and suppressed these voices of opposition.

This is why it is so powerful to immediately attack the founding monarch of the country. It is difficult to oppose the emperor.

This way is blocked, so we can only find another way, which is to transfer money to industry and commerce, or even overseas. Many former big landlords have cleared many fields, and even sold a lot of land in the interior on their own initiative. The cost of holding is high, and There is a shortage of manpower, the shortage and the risk of confiscation, so some of them are sold and put into industrial and commercial, mining, and even overseas trade, and some people turn to overseas to do business.

For example, in Japan, Annan, Luzon and other places, the relatively cheap manpower there is used to cultivate large manors, mainly planting sugar cane, jute, rice, tea, and even cash crops such as spices, tobacco leaves, and cotton, and then transport them back to the inland for processing. The profit is still considerable. In addition to employing local aborigines, they will also directly buy overseas slaves, which costs less.

"Ten thousand hectares of arable land needs to be reclaimed, and [-] hectares of pastures are not easy to graze. There is a shortage of people. Without people, the golden mountains and silver mountains can only stare blankly."

Shen Hongbang sighed to his brother-in-law, such a large fief, without the real policy support from the imperial court, it would be difficult to get up, the most important thing is people.But now the emperor obviously doesn't intend to grant land to the King of Han to immigrate directly, they have to figure out their own way.

But he also knew that it was so easy to immigrate.

Immigrants from the imperial court also cost a lot of money. Not to mention the allocation of a lot of land, but also the settlement fee, and even the government along the way, they also need to help and subsidize the immigrants in the first few years after they come here.

Shen Hongbang's hometown, Shenshiqiao, was from the Southern Song Dynasty to this time, and it took hundreds of years before it was considered lively with thousands of lights.

"Did Your Majesty say to give money?"

"I didn't say it."

"I have to." Shen Hongbang was very considerate of his brother-in-law.

Zhu Hongxuan was taken captive outside the pass when he was young, and suffered a lot with the crown prince, but after returning these years, he has been quite stable, studying at ease, and all expenses before he left the court were borne by the royal family, so he didn't have to think about these things at all.

The emperor will also give him monthly silver to use, but he has no idea about silver.

But now that they are crowned and married, and they are about to go to the country, it will be tantamount to separating the family from now on.

After the reform of the clan system, the salary and treatment of the clan has also been changed again and again. Now the clan ranks nine ranks, from the prince and county king to the prince of the county, and the son of Hou county in the county of Gongxian County.

For example, now the imperial court is a first-rank civil servant, with an annual salary of 240 silver dollars and another 240 shi of Lumi.

Therefore, the prince is paid according to the official first-rank official salary, and the official prince's salary is also 240 silver dollars plus 240 Shilumi a year.

However, the first-rank official is an extremely human minister, so he enjoys preferential treatment. In the court, he is a cabinet scholar, three masters and three princes, so he has double salary and double salary. The prince also follows this standard. The official annual salary is 480 yuan. Silver dollar, plus 480 shim.

This amount, whether it is before the Ming Dynasty or before the Manchu Qing Dynasty, is far behind.

The annual salary of the Prince of Ming Dynasty is 1 shi, but the Qing Dynasty gave the prince [-] taels of silver plus [-] shimi. In the Ming Dynasty, due to financial problems, the prince’s salary was generally discounted. The [-] shimi required rice and money. Half and half were given, and even in the past, they were often folded into precious banknotes, and the actual salary was only a few thousand taels of silver.

In comparison, Shao Tianchao's comparison is really not much.

However, Zhu Yihai would not treat his sons and daughters too harshly. The official salary of the clan was provided by the treasury, so it was set relatively low, but the emperor would additionally subsidize the clan from his own internal funds.

Generally, another copy is issued according to the salary.

In addition, there are other rewards such as the New Year's Day, or the birthdays of the princes and princesses, which are innumerable.

Whether the emperor wanted to give [-] or [-] was purely his personal freedom, and he didn't use the money from the treasury anyway.

Of course, the King of Han hadn't left the cabinet before to live elsewhere, and the expenses were all borne by the royal palace, and of course they didn't need too much money.

He is now going to divide into feudal vassals, and he has some money in his hand, mainly from the previous salary accumulation, which is basically unused, and then rewards from the emperor, and then a wave of rewards and gifts from the big wedding.

It adds up to tens of thousands of taels.

However, to develop such a large fiefdom, tens of thousands of silver dollars would definitely not be enough. Even if the emperor was responsible for paying for the construction of a Seoul city and the King's Mansion of Han, he still couldn't just have a house.

"His Royal Highness needs to ask His Majesty for another sum of money, no matter what, it must be several 10 yuan. With this money, let's buy slaves, recruit businessmen to jointly open mines, build commercial settlements, build pastures, and build some workshops to process leather and wool. "

"We can also recruit some people to immigrate and settle here. We will allocate some land to each household and rent some land to them. Talent is the key."

When Hongju heard that he was going to ask the emperor for several 10 yuan in silver, he hesitated: "This is not good, your majesty has already granted such a large piece of land, and also promised to build Seoul and the Han Palace."

"Your Highness, you are the King of Han. Apart from the crown prince, you are the chief vassal."

"Nowadays, the Japanese slaves in Tsushima Port usually cost 25 silver dollars for a family of four, and each one costs more than six dollars. Young and strong men even need ten silver dollars. Some skilled shipbuilders and other craftsmen get twenty-three For those who are young and beautiful and can be concubines and maidservants, they also cost more than ten or twenty yuan.

The Nanyang Kunlun slaves in Luzon Port, the Cochin people in Annan Wuan Port, the Champa people in Hue, the Africans in Malacca, and those young and strong plantation slaves are all very expensive. "

Now an acre of arable land in the interior is only a few silver dollars, and a plantation slave is worth about two or three mu of land.

The average price per person is 10 yuan, and [-] people will have to pay [-] yuan, and the food and drink expenses for [-] people are also very high.

In order to develop the fiefdom, Shen Hongbang persuaded the King of Han to ask the emperor for a start-up capital, and then first bought his slaves of [-], regardless of whether he was a white slave from Tsarist Russia or a Cossack slave, or a Japanese slave, Annan slave, Nanyang slave, African slave, etc. Slaves, Tatar slaves and so on, as long as they can be used.

"Your Highness remembers one more thing. We have to ask His Majesty to let us recruit a royal guard, at least a battalion, and we have to order a batch of ordnance from the imperial court, otherwise there will be so many slaves that there will be no guards to control them." No, with the permission of the imperial decree, we can use money to recruit a group of veterans with high salaries as guards."

The King of Han had been studying in Beijing for the past few years. He also practiced riding and archery, and also learned the art of war and artillery. But when it comes to managing fiefdoms, he has no experience at all. He didn't even have experience as a housekeeper before.

On the contrary, Shen Hongbang, the head of a famous family, has been in contact with some family management since he was a child, and has some understanding.

······
Zhu Yihai sat in the study and listened to the King of Han's intentions, but he didn't agree.

He drank tea, then said with a smile, "Your idea is not bad, Shen Hongbang planned it for you, right?"

"Your Majesty's eyes are as bright as a torch."

"Hahaha, Shen Hongbang is a good person, he reads well, and writes poems very smartly. His future achievements will not be inferior to his father Shen Chenquan. It is a good thing that you have this brother-in-law to help you, but it will cost several 10 Yuan and silver dollars, I have a big appetite."

"I can't give you this money."

The King of Han was stunned for a moment, and then said: "I know, I shouldn't make this request."

"Wait a minute, I won't reward you with this money, but we can cooperate."

The King of Han was puzzled.

"Let's talk about cooperation from a business perspective. The prospect of your fiefdom is still good. It is suitable for farming and animal husbandry, and there are mines. The transportation is not bad, and the geographical location is not bad. After all, it is on the Bailan Ancient Road, and it is next to the Yellow River. Lanzhou and Xining are not too far away. Although Longyang Gorge and Liugong Gorge are not navigable, sheepskin rafts and wooden rafts can also go down the river.

I can send people from the Shaofu Supervisor to talk to you about cooperation, to open mines together, to build commercial villages, and commercial ranches. As for how to contribute capital, how to divide the share income, etc., this can be discussed in detail, and it can also be brought to the Shen family in Ningbo. Waiting for other interested parties to join together, I believe that there must be someone who is willing to cooperate and join in such a precious place. "

"You can directly take the land and mines to join the business, or you can ask the Royal Bank for a loan, and the interest is easy to say."

The king of Han originally heard from his uncle that he wanted to ask the emperor directly for several 10 silver dollars, but the emperor directly talked to him about cooperative development and asked him to borrow money to collect interest.

"Go back and ask Shen Hongbang to draw up a detailed plan. I will ask the people from the Shaofu Supervisor to come over to discuss. I will give you a suggestion. You can't just rely on buying slaves to attract business. You should also use part of the arable land and grassland in the fief To recruit Han immigrants, even if you use half of the land to recruit immigrants, 50 mu of cultivated land, 50 mu per household, you can still recruit [-] households. Although you allocate [-] mu of land, if you seal the land If you can really attract [-] Han immigrants, then your territory can take off."

"It is also possible to give each household a hundred acres of land, divide half of it and rent the other half."

"Remember, if you want long-term peace and stability, the most important thing is to keep the majority of Han people in the fief. They will become the ballast stone for the stability of your territory and the most reliable supporter for your frontier fiefdom!"

(End of this chapter)