Jingnan Strategy

Chapter 279 Yongle New Deal

"The crimes include 5,627 civil servants, 1,476 military officers, and 367,527 people from three clans including father, mother, and wife."

"Search..."

"and many more!"

In the Wuying Hall on June 15th, when Zhu Di listened to Zhu Gaoxu say the number of "three hundred and sixty-seven thousand five hundred and twenty-seven people" without blushing or heartbeat, he looked at Zhu Gaoxu with the eyes of a monster.

You know, even if the four major Hongwu cases were added together, they would only amount to this amount.

As a result, the new dynasty had just begun, and so many people were implicated, which made Zhu Di feel a little uneasy.

He was not that cruel in the first place. In history, he brought the wives and daughters of the most criminal officials into the Jiaofangsi, and only let them do some laundry and cleaning work.

Before the official prostitutes were merged into the Jiaofangsi, he pardoned the wives and daughters of Jianwen's old ministers. Therefore, there is no unofficial theory that Fang Xiaoru's seventy or eighty-year-old mother was allowed to receive guests.

It is also because he is not that cruel, so he sees Zhu Gaoxu as more cruel.

One person can implicate more than 300,000 people. If historians write about these things in the future, they will all be written on his head.

"Second brother, isn't it a bit too much?"

Zhu Di looked at Zhu Gaoxu with toothache, but Zhu Gaoxu glanced at Zhu Di and said:

"These 360,000 people also include relatives of Fang Xiaoru, Bao Zhao, Qi Tai, Huang Zicheng and others. They have committed such evil, and the imperial court just moved their relatives to Yunnan to open up wasteland. This is already worthy of them. How can we deserve it?" "Excessive"?

He hates waste the most, and he has to eat every grain of rice in the bowl.

Therefore, after entering the capital, except for Fang Xiaoru and a dozen other people who were ordered to be killed by Zhu Di, he did not kill any of the others. They were all waiting to be relocated to Yunnan to develop the local area and promote local Sinicization.

With more than 300,000 people entering Yunnan, Zhu Gaoxu is confident that he can advance Yunnan's Sinicization work to the 200-year mark.

As long as these more than 300,000 people take root in Yunnan, it will only take a few decades for Yunnan to be completely Sinicized and become part of the traditional Han region.

The problem before him now is that these more than 300,000 people have moved to Yunnan, but Yunnan does not have that much arable land to feed them, so Zhu Gaoxu set his sights on Luchuan.

But before talking about Luchuan, Zhu Gaoxu had to explain the results of his house raid.

He lowered his head and muttered without waiting for Zhu Di to retort: ​​"Forty-seven thousand six hundred and thirty-three households were searched, and a total of 2,761,400 shi of grain and more than 3,798,000 yuan of money were confiscated. Guan, 24,327 taels of gold, 564,231 taels of silver, 2,156,400 taels of banknotes, antique calligraphy, paintings and ancient books from various houses The value is hard to estimate, at least no less than three million."

"In addition, we also obtained one-third of one thousand two hundred and ninety-six thousand four hundred and twenty-four acres of land."

After saying that, Zhu Gaoxu closed the album and placed it on Zhu Di's desk, while glancing at Zhu Di, who had his eyes widened.

"So many things?!" Zhu Di grabbed the book and flipped through it. He didn't expect that these sanctimonious old barbarians actually had so many good things.

Zhu Gaoxu didn't say anything after hearing this. He just said: "These cultivated fields in the north can be allocated to the military attachés, while those in the south can be given to real people for cultivation."

"Only during this inspection, more than two million acres of hidden arable land were found, and the court's taxes increased by another 400,000 dan."

"These old barbarians are really hateful!" Zhu Dihong looked at the contents of the book and his eyes almost popped out of his head.

God knows how poor he was before. Even with an army of more than 200,000 soldiers, he only had less than 2 million shi of food in his hands.

But the wealth of this group of civil servants and military officers, even if the land and calligraphy and painting agitation were excluded, the gold, silver, copper coins and food alone were enough for him to take an army of more than 200,000 people to Mobei four or five times.

"How are you going to spend the money and food?" Zhu Di looked at Zhu Gaoxu, but Zhu Gaoxu spread his hands: "Of course you need money to make money, but before money can make money, you have to clean up the mess left by Jianwen."

"The price of Baobao was finally stabilized by Grandpa, but now it has been corrupted by Jianwen. Now we, father and son, have to wipe his ass."

"Gold and silver are deposited in the imperial court, but this year we will continue to use banknotes to offset taxes, and this will be implemented in the entire Jiangnan, Beijing, and two provinces."

Zhu Gaoxu will continue to use banknotes to offset taxes to benefit Jiangnan, but this time he will benefit not the gentry, but the common people.

Zhu Yunwen's indiscriminate issuance of treasure banknotes caused the price of treasure banknotes to drop, and the people lost trust in treasure banknotes, so Zhu Gaoxu had to undergo a large-scale recycling of treasure banknotes.

"How much food will be wasted?" Zhu Di was stunned. He didn't dare to think about how much food it would cost to use banknotes to offset taxes in one Beijing and two provinces.

Zhu Gaoxu chuckled at this, and then said: "I have calculated that if one stone of grain is recycled, seven million grains can be recovered in one fell swoop."

Zhu Di has issued a decree to exempt half of all taxes in the world, which means that this year, including military villages, the imperial court's income will not exceed 25 million shi.

Now Zhu Gaoxu is using banknotes to offset taxes to recover 7 million banknotes. Although the people must have suffered a loss, they can at least recover a little of their original capital, and the court can also use this to steadily increase the price of the banknotes.

Lao Zhu issued too many treasure notes, which can be said to have overdrawn the credibility of Ming Dynasty treasure notes.

Zhu Gaoxu plans to continue to use treasure money in the future, so he must make up for his credibility.

Anyway, in his impression, basically nothing will happen in Ming Dynasty in the next few years, so there is no need to care about money and food.

"You've spent all your money and food, how can you make money from it?"

Zhu Di frowned and looked at Zhu Gaoxu. Although he was good at making money, he was still not good at making money with money.

In this regard, Zhu Gaoxu also looked at Zhu Di: "I plan to organize a voyage to the West and set up trading points in the West so that Ming's goods can appear regularly in the coastal countries of Nanyang and Xiaoxiang."

"I have calculated that from this sum alone, the imperial court can earn at least two to three million gold and silver worth every year."

Needless to say, how profitable the voyages were. The reason for criticism in later generations was that all the goods from the voyages went into the emperor's internal funds. Although Zhu Di was not greedy for gold and silver and invested them all in the country, for the ministers at that time Said that a spice allowance made them victims of the voyages to the West.

Zhu Di and Xuande then sent spices to the West, which were used as salary until the Chenghua period.

The ministers finally breathed a sigh of relief, but when they heard that Chenghua also wanted to go to the West, they quickly stopped his idea.

If he were allowed to go to the West again, the civil servants would never get a salary in their lifetime.

Having learned his lesson, Zhu Gaoxu was not going to use spices to reduce his salary to offend civil servants, he had to at least win over some of them.

Why is the time between the voyages to the West getting longer and longer? To put it bluntly, the gold and silver treasures accumulated by the indigenous people in the coastal countries for hundreds of years were completely wiped out by Zheng He once he came. If they don't give them a few years to recover, they don't even know about the gold, silver and copper mines. And the local pearl corals are good stuff and they don't have enough time to mine them.

According to Liu Daxia, who was most opposed to the voyages to the West, a voyage to the West cost hundreds of thousands of money and grain. This scale was simply a drop in the bucket for the Ming Dynasty, which had an annual income of more than 50 million yuan.

Zhu Gaoxu originally thought that Liu Daxia had failed to solve the problem, but after he came to Daming to see the shipbuilding price, he could only say that Liu Daxia had done his best to eliminate the problem.

"I plan to let Zheng He, Yang Zhan, Cui Jun, and Zheng Jun preside over this voyage to the West. At the same time, I will set up two propaganda departments in Luzon and Palembang."

Zhu Di's correct answers can be copied, and Zhu Gaoxu naturally knows how to copy homework.

Zhu Di established the Governor of Luzon and the Xuanwei Department of Jiugang, and Zhu Gaoxu also wanted to do the same, and he did it even better.

No one else knows about Luzon. How can Zhu Gaoxu know about it?

Whether it is Luzon in the north or Mindanao in the south, these places are filled with a large number of gold mines and associated copper mines, in addition to iron ore and coal.

More importantly, although there are nearly one million local indigenous people, their cultural level is at best stuck in the clan system period. The only country left is Sulu, which was created by the migration of Sumatran immigrants ten years ago.

It was too easy for Zhu Gaoxu to assimilate them. It was nothing more than a combination of kindness and power.

But if you really want the local government, you have to mention a deadly disease... malaria.

In addition to knowing that artemisinin could be extracted from bitter mugwort, Zhu Gaoxu only knew that cinchona bark could effectively treat malaria.

Zhu Gaoxu didn't know how to extract the former, but the latter was relatively simple. As long as there was tree bark, it could be used to treat diseases.

Thinking of this, Zhu Gaoxu was not surprised why Zhu Di asked Zheng He to consecrate Xu Chailao, an overseas Chinese in Luzon, as governor. To put it bluntly, he already had antibodies in his body and could stay in Luzon longer and live longer.

But if this is the case, is it feasible to arm the overseas Chinese in Luzon and let them hire local indigenous people to mine?

Thinking of this, Zhu Gaoxu had a basic plan in his mind, but now he still had to find a way to deal with what was happening in front of him.

"Does this cost a lot of money and food?"

When Zhu Di heard that Zhu Gaoxu was going to host a voyage to the West, his eyes lit up and he asked curiously, but Zhu Gaoxu shook his head:

"The cost is indeed not small, but the profit is even greater."

"In the past few days, after I asked my father for Zheng He, I took him, Yang Zhan, Cui Jun, Zheng Jun and others to the Longjiang Shipyard."

"The largest ships built by Longjiang Shipyard can reach three thousand materials. However, as long as they allocate money, food, time, wood and experience, they can build even larger warships."

"I asked the shipbuilders there to build bigger ships. The bigger the better. As long as they can build warships made of 5,000 materials and horse ships made of 6,000 materials. If 200 ships are equipped like this, the Japanese pirates along the coast can be wiped out."

"In addition, before sailing to the West, you can also sail to the East to show your national strength and deter the Japanese."

Zhu Gaoxu mentioned going to the East Ocean, and this is something that many people don't know.

Before Zheng He sailed to the West, the first place he went to was Japan in the East, and he taught Ashikaga Yoshimitsu according to Zhu Di's order.

Seeing the size of Zheng He's fleet, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu immediately captured more than 20 thieves, saying they were Japanese pirates, and executed them by steaming them to death, in order to show that he had nothing to do with the Japanese pirates offshore the Ming Dynasty.

After Zheng He returned to Beijing to report, Zhu Di responded to Ashikaga Yoshimitsu's approach and also gave him nine chapters, official uniforms, Wenqi, gold and silver, porcelain, calligraphy and paintings, etc., and allowed Japan to pay tribute every ten years, and the chief and deputy envoys, etc. There can be as many as 200 people, trading in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

Compared with Zhu Di's approach, Zhu Gaoxu's approach goes a step further. First of all, he must capture the gold and silver mines on Sado Island. In order to facilitate trade, he has prepared to build a post road in the Bohai Sea directly to Vladivostok in addition to building a fleet, and build a port there to facilitate the supply of Sado Island in the future.

Secondly, he would definitely not let the Ashikaga Shogunate come to the Ming Dynasty for tribute trade, but would open a port on the Oki Islands to facilitate the acquisition of silver mines in the Iwami area from Japan.

He could send troops to capture Sado Island. It was just a desert island anyway, and the Ashikaga Shogunate wouldn't care.

The Oki Islands are more important, but as long as Zhu Gaoxu does not send too many troops, and the area can face Japan's opening of ports in Tottori and Kyoto, the Ashikaga shogunate must consider the attitude of its daimyo even if it wants to refuse.

Using economic means to allow the Japanese to mine in Iwami, the Ming Dynasty exchanged brown sugar, white sugar and cloth and satin for silver.

This is Zhu Gaoxu's attitude towards Japan's two major silver mines, one is economic plunder, and the other is direct occupation and excavation.

"Two hundred warships will cost a lot of money and food, right?"

Zhu Di didn't know that Zhu Gaoxu was seeking silver mines in Japan, so he felt distressed that it would cost so much.

"This move costs about one million guan, and the subsequent maintenance of this navy will cost about 600,000 guan each year."

"However, after the establishment of this navy, it will be difficult for our Ming Dynasty and even Nanyang to see pirates. At the same time, this navy can bring benefits to our Ming Dynasty of at least 3 million yuan."

As soon as Zhu Gaoxu opened his mouth, Zhu Di took a deep breath: "What about my palace?"

"The palace in the capital must be built. I plan to complete the construction in fifteen years and allocate two million guan each year."

Zhu Gaoxu mentioned the things that Zhu Di was concerned about, but after hearing this, Zhu Di felt that it was not enough, and discussed: "Three million strings, how about ten years?"

"Father, please don't make things difficult for me." Zhu Gaoxu shook his head helplessly: "The gold bricks and nanmu needed to build the palace city need to be mined and transported from the mountains in the southwest. The manpower and material resources required are useless. I'm afraid there will be many casualties. I would rather go slow. He wants to work hard, but he doesn’t want to work quickly and poorly.”

"That's true..." Zhu Di nodded, agreeing with Zhu Gaoxu's statement.

But after he nodded, he spoke again: "Mu Chun of Yunnan put down Dao Qianmeng's rebellion three days ago, and asked if we should take advantage of the victory to pursue it. I know Yunnan well, and it's up to you to see."

"Taken Sister Yunmu?" Zhu Gaoxu didn't find it strange. After all, in history, Muchun defeated Dao Ganmeng in a few months. Later, he died of illness. Even if He Fu succeeded him, it only took him half a year to put him down.

The main reason Dao Gan Meng has been able to survive for so long is because Fu Mao and Wang Xuan are holding him back, holding Mu Chun back from letting him use his skills to his fullest.

Now that Fu Mao and Wang Xuan have let go, it's strange that Mu Chun can't kill Dao Gan Meng.

But judging from the meaning of Zhu Di's words, Dao Ganmeng should have gone to Xuan Xuan and Liu Gao.

Thinking of this, Zhu Gaoxu also trusted Zhu Di's historical methods of splitting up Luchuan, so he said, "What does father think should be done about Luchuan?"

"I think..." Zhu Di dared to ask Zhu Gaoxu. He must have already had a draft in his mind. Now that Zhu Gaoxu asked back, he also stroked his beard and read out the draft in his mind.

"Luchuan is too dangerous. Now we must let Muchun continue to go deep until we catch Dao Ganmeng."

"Taking advantage of the power of Dao Gan Meng, the imperial court had to set up five mansions in the five places of Mengpeng, Mengyang, Mengding, Mengyou and Mengdi."

"Then we will set up long lawsuits in Menghe, Mengya, Menglian and Jingye to establish more direct rule for the court."

"As a result, Luchuan's jurisdiction only has Mengmao, Mengwan and other places, and there is no way to make trouble."

Zhu Di said this, and Zhu Gaoxu nodded in approval.

Some of the nine places he mentioned were in Yunnan in later generations, and some were in Myanmar in later generations, but no matter what, they are all considered the territory of the Ming Dynasty now, and even the Sanxuan and Liuwei are also the territory of the Ming Dynasty.

"In this case, let Mubang, Mengyang, Mengding, Dahou, and Nandian be the prefectures, and Lujiang, Wandian, Menglian, and Zheledian be the chief officials."

Since the Southwest War has been going on for two years, the original chieftains of Mubang, Mengyang, Mengding, Dahou, and Nandian prefectures have ceased to exist in name only. There is no need to set up chieftains as in history. They can immigrate to the local areas and sinicize them.

On the other hand, because the four chieftains in the south are too far away from the battlefield, the power of the chieftains still exists. Given the situation in Yunnan, they cannot be defeated at all.

Thinking of this, Zhu Gaoxu also said: "This time, 30% of the more than 300,000 criminals will be moved to Lin'an Prefecture (Mengzi), 30% will be moved to Dali, Lijiang, Yongchang and other places, and the remaining 40% will be moved to these five prefectures. Bar."

"Not bad, not bad." When Zhu Di heard that his second son supported him, a smile immediately appeared on his face.

The more he sees Zhu Gaochi now, the more he likes him. The reason is that after learning that he wanted to make Peking his capital, Zhu Gaochi wrote to him specifically hoping not to do that. Making Nanjing his capital would help control Jiangnan.

Zhu Di was very dissatisfied when he thought that his boss did not want to move the capital. Instead, he looked at Zhu Gaoxu. Zhu Gaoxu was basically on the same line as him, so he naturally liked him.

"Your eldest brother doesn't want us to move the capital to Peking. Do you know this?"

"I know." Zhu Gaoxu nodded and lifted a chair to sit on the side of Zhu Di's dragon case.

Zhu Di looked at him with resentment in his eyes: "Your eldest brother is just a petty person and doesn't understand what I think."

"The eldest brother is indeed stingy." Zhu Gaoxu chuckled, and then said: "Because he is stingy, he can't achieve big things."

It's not that Zhu Gaoxu deliberately belittled Zhu Gaochi, but Zhu Gaochi and Zhu Zhanji did not do well in history.

Peking was controlled by Gu Chengshou, and Yu Xin and Xia Yuanji were responsible for managing the financial affairs during the Yongle period. Zhu Gaochi certainly had some credit, but it was not as great as the Jiangnan literati boasted.

The overall direction during the Yongle period was still following the path set by Zhu Di. Zhu Gaochi could only manage state affairs according to Zhu Di's ideas, just like when Zhu Yuanzhang was still alive, Zhu Yunwen had to manage state affairs according to Zhu Yuanzhang's ideas.

But when they came to power themselves, their attitude immediately changed.

Zhu Gaoxu could capture Zhu Di's thoughts. Zhu Di's thoughts were nothing more than sailing to the West, moving the capital to Beijing, conquering Mongolia in the north, and dredging the canal.

The things Zhu Gaoxu is doing now are all carried out in the direction he wants to proceed.

The purpose of developing Liaodong and Bohai is to capture Modong in the future and to attack Mobei from Modong.

The site selection for moving the capital to Beijing has begun. Peiping has become Beizhili, Beiping Prefecture has also become Shuntian Prefecture, and Beiping City has also become Xingzai.

Now that the voyage to the West has begun, the next thing Zhu Gaoxu wants to talk about is dredging the canal.

"If Peiping becomes the capital of the country in the future, it will definitely need to be transferred from Liaodong. It will be a long process for Liaodong to satisfy Peiping, so the dredging of the canal is urgent."

Zhu Gaoxu and Zhu Di talked about the canal, and Zhu Di nodded after listening: "I went south to see it. The Yellow River bursting was really bad. The Yellow River diverted the Huaihe River and entered the sea, which also made the canal easy to silt up. It should be dredged."

"Yes!" Zhu Gaoxu nodded: "The prerequisite for dredging the canal is to control the Yellow River, and I have also thought of ways to control the Yellow River. The method of concentrating water and flushing sand is one of the good ways to deal with it."

"Water beam flushing method?" Zhu Di leaned forward curiously, and Zhu Gaoxu also took the opportunity to explain clearly this water control method that only appeared during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty.

The method of beaming water and flushing sand was a method of regulating the Yellow River proposed by Pan Jixun in the Ming Dynasty. Its concept began to influence the Qing Dynasty from the Ming Dynasty, and even later generations were improved on the basis of this method.

To put it simply, it is to tighten the river channel and use the momentum of water to impact the sediment at the bottom of the river bed, thereby achieving the purpose of dredging and preventing floods.

During the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, through the development and improvement of Jin Fu and Chen Huang on the basis of Pan Ji's river control in the Ming Dynasty, the Yellow River formed a system of using dikes to divert water to attack sand, remote embankments for flood control, combined with dikes, rolling water dams, water reduction dams, etc. A river control and flood control system with flood troughs and siltation.

Now Zhu Gaoxu brought the perfected system to the Ming Dynasty. Not only did he get it to the Ming Dynasty, he also allocated funds to establish this system.

As long as this project is completed, the number of Yellow River breaches will be controlled, as will the scope.

This project alone can save millions of people in the Huaihe River, Yellow River, Shandong and other places from having to worry about Huang Pan. This is why Zhu Gaoxu asked the Ministry of Industry to come.

"Your method is good! I trust you and leave it to you to handle it with confidence!"

Regarding Zhu Gaoxu's "Water Condensation and Sand Washing Method", Zhu Di's eyes lit up. After all, when he was the emperor, no matter who built the project, it would always be remembered in his head in the end.

He rebelled and became emperor, and now he is most eager to prove that he is better than Zhu Yunwen.

Since the Sanyi Huihe River in the Song Dynasty, the Yellow River has never stopped. Even Kublai Khan could not do anything about it.

Once Zhu Gaoxu's "water-reinforcement and sand-washing project" succeeds, Zhu Di's achievements will definitely be added to his achievements.

"How much food do you want to mobilize?"

Zhu Di's eyes were blazing, but Zhu Gaoxu chuckled: "Father doesn't have to worry about how I am mobilized. Anyway, it will never delay Beijing's construction and development of Liaodong."

"That's good." Zhu Di scratched his beard, then paused: "When will my wife arrive in the capital?"

"It should be half a month later than mother and the others." Speaking of Guo Yan, Zhu Gaoxu also had a smile on his face.

However, Zhu Di hesitated to speak, and finally said: "Many people have been talking about Guo Ying's matter recently. You'd better resolve Guo Ying's matter before your daughter-in-law arrives."

What Zhu Di said was nothing more than Guo Ying's admonition to Zhu Yunwen. Even for Zhu Di, the new king, he did not go to the outer court to pay homage because he was old.

Such an approach naturally caused dissatisfaction among the old staff of Bohai and Yan Mansion. However, Zhu Gaoxu was sure to manage Lao Guotou obediently.

"Don't worry, father, I'll be there in two days."

Zhu Gaoxu squinted his eyes, wondering what solution he had come up with.

(End of this chapter)