Great Qing Dynasty talker

Chapter 454: The Confucian Scholars’ “Conspiracy” and Li Yu’s “Open Conspiracy”

Guangzhou Command,
A guard came in hurriedly and whispered:

"Your Majesty, Zeng Huaigu, the Hakka leader of Fengtang Village in Heshan County, has gathered more than 1000 people and escaped."

Li Yu was surprised.

asked:

"Run away, what do you mean?"

……

The guard handed over the military report.

After reading it, Li Yu became very angry.

original,

Xue Chen, the military judge of the 5th Corps, was ordered to investigate whether the Keyong unit's unauthorized provocation on that day was a spontaneous act or instigated by someone behind the scenes.

finally,
I found Zeng Huaigu~
This guy must have heard the news, and gathered hundreds of miners and some young and strong people who were dissatisfied with Wu Ting and ran into the mountains.

……

Before running away,

He also injured the other two leaders who came to dissuade them after hearing the news, and scolded them for not recognizing the world and mistaking Lao Lao for the boss.

According to the scouts' tracking in the mountains, this group of people was most likely heading to Wuzhou Prefecture in Guangxi.

"Forget it, it's going to rain and my mother wants to get married, so let it be."

Li Yu only cares about the overall situation.

If a few people are dissatisfied and take the initiative to run away, it is actually a good thing, as it will reduce future troubles.

Sending troops to hunt them down will only hurt the rest of the people~
Not so much.

……

Li Yu was alone in the study quietly.
Look at the two presentations submitted~
The Secretariat first reads all official military documents and reports, compresses and succinctly summarizes the content as much as possible, and then sorts them according to importance.

E.g,

Guangdong has approved the establishment of 348 private iron factories and 173 mines of various types, mainly iron ore.

He was not surprised.
These numbers did not appear out of nowhere; they have actually existed for a long time.

it is just,

It simply transformed the original private mine into the current legal and public mining.

……

Guangdong is rich in various minerals, including metal mines such as iron, copper, lead, silver, gold, and tin, and construction minerals such as kaolin, limestone, limestone, granite, and quartz sand.

It borders the sea to the southeast and serves as a bridgehead to the sea.

Coupled with the strong mercantilism among the people.

Therefore,
Li Yu had high hopes for Guangdong and planned to build it into the second engine of the Wu State's chariot.

……

to this end,

He instructed:
"It ordered Pingxiang Coal Mine to provide high-quality coking coal to the Guangdong Iron and Steel Plant at normal market prices."

"Order the Military Industry Department to send personnel to build a new artillery factory in Foshan and purchase high-quality Guangdong iron from the public."

"Order part of the 5th Corps to station in Luoding Prefecture. They have two tasks. First, to assist the Shipbuilding Bureau in searching for ironwood in the mountains. Second, to block the retreat of the Qing army in Zhaoqing Prefecture. First persuade them to surrender and then use military force."

After writing these,

He took out another piece of paper, pondered for a moment, and wrote two words:

food!

This wave of spring grain harvest is very important, and large quantities of grain are urgently needed to be transferred to Guangdong to stabilize grain prices.

When food prices fall, people's morale rises.

Most of the Cantonese people are just getting by.

A prominent characteristic of the Cantonese people is that they are not keen on formal governance, but care more about practical benefits.

……

Li Yu was stationed in Guangzhou, and imperial edicts were sent to the occupied states and counties.

The newly appointed civil servants naturally did not dare to be negligent and did their best to carry out the orders.

Whenever the army entered a county town in the occupied area, civil officials would move in and hang up signs right after the army entered the city.

but,

8% of the vacancies in government offices and higher provincial governments are vacant, waiting for the next vacancy.

Those who perform outstandingly will have the opportunity to advance faster than others and enter the prefecture or even the province.

This kind of situation of "too many pits and too few carrots" only occurs once every few hundred years and is a phenomenon unique to the early days of the founding of the country.

……

Anyone who followed the chariot of the empire in the early days, as long as they had a little ability and showed moderate loyalty, would be able to rise rapidly in their career.

Don’t mention qualifications, thresholds, experience, or background.

The rules for selecting officials in the new dynasty had not yet been established, and there was no sign of censors.

Things will be different once the empire enters a stable period.

There are carrots squatting in all the pits~
After the stable period, there is the burnout period.

Radishes are rampant, radishes are holding a meeting, and radishes are gathering.

Even if you are among the top three in the imperial examination and have a bright future, it is still not easy to seek a real job as a county magistrate.

Not to mention, the magistrate was promoted.

Every step forward is like defeating six generals through five passes.

In order to be a county magistrate, one must meet numerous rigid requirements and have a noble person to appreciate and support him. 7% of county magistrates eventually retired as county magistrates.

……

now,

More and more southern scholars took the initiative to join Wu Ting.

They looked at those who failed in the imperial examinations, and transformed themselves into "Bai Li Hou", powerful and prestigious with bright future.

He was so jealous that his heart was torn and his eyes were bloodshot.

Many people have also figured it out - "put aside disputes and make progress together."

Let’s not talk about Confucianism or Confucius and Mencius for now.

I will learn whatever your majesty tests on, and I only hope to get on the train and become an official as soon as possible.

If you can’t beat them, just join them first.

……

Borrowing the network style from hundreds of years later, the translation means this:

"If you think Wu is not a good country, you should not despise it or complain about it. Instead, you should take the initiative to join it and build it up."

I am a flexible Confucian scholar, especially good at persuading myself.

These people comfort themselves:
Later,
The righteousness fills the morning, and the righteousness reaches the sky~
We can slowly persuade the Holy Emperor to change his "merchant temper" and respect everyone's "Confucianism" beliefs a little.

Anyway,
The Great Wu is far superior to the Great Qing.

……

of course,

Adults know that

Some things can be done but cannot be said.

Therefore,
Don't say it out loud for now. When the time is ripe in the future, we will press the dragon's head hard to make His Majesty drink Confucius' foot washing water.

Arrogant?
Not arrogant at all.

When the Yuan Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty entered the country,
All the chiefs on horseback were covered in blood and looked ferocious. From a distance they did not look like human leaders, but from a close distance they all looked like wild boars.

Under heavy pressure,

Confucius Mansion is not in a hurry, talking and laughing ~
Kneel first! Stand later!
He led scholars from all over the world to successfully occupy the court.

finally,
He successfully assimilated the Yuan and Qing dynasties, and educated the chiefs' descendants to be obedient.

……

Less than a hundred years,

All the descendants of the Eight Banners read Confucian classics, listened to Chinese music, ate Chinese food, and wrote Chinese characters, completely assimilating to China.

Forget about the Yuan Dynasty, which gave up struggling in less than 50 years.

Who's winning?
We still won.

Come one, win one.

Come get a pair, win a pair.

No matter whether you ride a horse or take a boat, have small braids or long braids or tie a ponytail, you will lose in the end if you enter the customs.

Those who have tasted the sweetness will take the initiative to lower their heads and drink Confucius' foot washing water.

If you don't let them drink, they will hack you to death.

……

if,

Now Li Zicheng sits on the throne, and the court is occupied by rough and uncultured people. The new dynasty lacks culture in its blood.

It's a bit difficult to convince.

It takes generations.

Your Majesty is from Jiangnan, and the important officials in the Wu court also have Jiangnan background.

This is wonderful~
There are no barriers between us in terms of language and values.

……

Before there was Zhu Xi, and after there was Qian Qianyi.

Jin Shengtan is at most a scrap and cannot be made into good furniture.

Confucianism,

It has been developed in the south of the Yangtze River for more than 1000 years and is deeply rooted in the bones of the people.

Jiangnan has a literary atmosphere!
30 years at most,
Wu Ting must return to the right path.

It is possible that the defeat was even more complete than that of the Qing Dynasty.

……

It is worth noting that

The vast majority of these scholars who defected to Wu Ting were not yet qualified to step into the threshold of the Confucian compound, or even if they had stepped into the threshold, they were only qualified to stand in the courtyard.

They were very greedy and could smell the meat in the house, but they couldn't eat it.

Those who ate meat and drank wine in the house were civil servants and gentry.

There is a fine line between these two groups.

The former wanted to go into the house and eat meat at the table, but he couldn't squeeze in.

So he left the Confucian compound angrily.

I went to the Wu family compound next door to congratulate them, hoping to get a seat at the table and eat meat while there were few people around.

presumably,

The host will also give some face, and everyone will help each other.

……

but,

This group of scholars who came to the Wu family compound to congratulate,
What I am most dissatisfied with at the moment is that Wu Ting’s examination system has never been perfected.

There is no accurate regulation on the exam time, location, and number of admissions, which has made everyone's necks stretched like giraffes.

Hu Xueyu once reminded His Majesty~
However, Li Yu used the excuse that he was busy with the war and deliberately ignored the matter.

This is a serious matter, so we must be cautious.

He didn't want to conquer the world and then look back.

The civil servants under his command have only changed their names. The braids on their heads have been cut off, but the braids in their hearts are still shiny and smooth.

……

Reading ≠ Confucianism.

This is a sleight of hand.

Ordinary people thought that Confucianism was a system of knowledge, while scholars claimed that Confucianism was a system of values.

Actually,
Confucianism is a system of distribution.

The Han gentry supported the Qing Dynasty because the Qing Dynasty supported Confucianism.

The Han gentry in the Qing-controlled areas did not support Li Yu because Li Yu wanted to confiscate their table knives.

After all,

Ultimately, it's a struggle for interests.

When you are confused when reading history, the simplest way to assist your reading is to start with money!
Use "money" to represent every person and every thing in history books.

But a small epiphany.

……

"Look at the dark hole ahead, that must be the thief's lair. I'll catch up and kill him cleanly~"

Suddenly, a very distinctive actor's voice came from next door, which was very consistent with my current mood.

Li Yu was stunned.
He cast an inquiring look at the guards standing guard in the courtyard.

The guard quickly whispered:
"It was the Liyuan Opera Troupe sent by the New Guangzhou Chamber of Commerce when His Majesty personally led the expedition to the four counties."

"Ah."

Li Yu turned and went into the study, quickly wrote a letter and handed it to the guard:

"Give this letter to the president of the Chamber of Commerce."

"Yes."

……

Conquer Guangzhou,

Wu's army deliberately wiped out the original officials and gentry in the city.

Therefore, the so-called new chamber of commerce was actually an organization established by wealthy businessmen from Jiangsu and Zhejiang who followed the army into Guangzhou City.

The cuckoo takes over the magpie's nest~
As soon as Wu Jun conquered the territory, the business community from Jiangsu and Zhejiang followed suit.

First, they purchased the shops and warehouses confiscated by Wu Jun, and then sold various industrial products produced by Jiangnan factories.

The cooperation between the two sides is pleasant.

Today, the support of the Jiangsu and Zhejiang business community for Wu Ting is fanatical.

Many people privately say,
If Your Majesty wanted to raise 1000 million taels of silver for military pay now, the merchants from Jiangsu and Zhejiang would not hesitate to raise 1200 million taels of silver and send them to the national treasury.

Over the years of cooperation,

The two sides have become a tacit community of interests.

……

but,

Few people realize that His Majesty is actually splitting up the Jiangnan gentry group intentionally or unintentionally.

original,

The three identities of civil servants, gentry, and merchants overlap.

One person wears 3 layers of masks.

but,
The outermost mask used for meeting people is the gentleman's mask.

Therefore, it is more intuitive to call it the "Jiangnan Gentry Group".

For this,

Li Yu's mind was as clear as a mirror.
But I pretended to be confused on the surface, and opened fire on the outermost mask of the gentry, telling everyone that I have no mutual affinity with the gentry.

A knife stabbed his face and the gentleman's mask was broken.

As for whose face is bleeding in the back?

It has nothing to do with me.

Anyway, I only poke the faces of gentry~
I don’t know that there are other faces behind this face.

……

slowly,
There have been subtle changes in this group.

The gentry group gradually disappeared.

The remaining two groups of civil servants and merchants also began to separate and drift away.

Civil servants are civil servants, and merchants are merchants, becoming two completely different groups.

Everyone has to show their true faces.

On the surface,
It doesn't seem to have any effect.

But in fact,

The Jiangnan Group has been divided and it is impossible for it to merge again.

……

Those scholars who thought they would join if they couldn't beat the enemy will sooner or later be surprised to find that the Jiangnan Civil Service Group and the Jiangnan Industrial and Commercial Group are incompatible.

The Jiangnan civil service group may support the return of orthodox teachings.

As for the Jiangnan Industrial and Commercial Group, they will stand by Your Majesty at all costs and prevent Confucianism from returning to orthodoxy!

The group that Li Yu deliberately cultivated has tasted sweetness, tasted freedom, and tasted blood.

It is impossible for them to stand with their fellow civil servants anymore.

People can never escape from their stance.

the above,

These are all Li Yu’s in-depth plans and layouts for the future of the empire.

……

Frankly speaking,

The gentry in the south of the Yangtze River, the military generals in Liaodong, the clans in the south, the sea merchants in Guangdong and Fujian, the chieftains in the southwest, the volunteers in the northwest, etc., any rising group is not a kind person.

This has nothing to do with region, occupation, or background.

After any group rises, they will frantically absorb nutrients from the empire host until they kill all potential opponents and dominate the host alone!

From the perspective of ordinary people,

They all deserve to die.

From the emperor's perspective, these are just historical experiences of failure.

It is not appropriate to elaborate.

……

36 members of the Guangzhou Chamber of Commerce gathered together.

After reading His Majesty's handwritten letter~
Everyone looked at each other, and had a general idea in their minds.

President Bei Tiantian,
He was the son of a wealthy businessman in Huzhou Prefecture, and his family ran a large cotton spinning and silk weaving industry.

He coughed twice.
Said softly:

"My Lords, your Majesty has instructed the Guangzhou Chamber of Commerce to only engage in wholesale business and not in retail business. Retail business should be left to small local merchants."

"Your Majesty is wise. In business, you should give some money to others. It's not good to eat all the food alone."

“I suggest that all companies rent out the shops they have already acquired, on the condition that they only sell our industrial products.”

"Okay, let's vote by raising our hands, shall we?"

……

As expected, all passed.

but,

One of them laughed and said:

"After this battle in Guangzhou, all the powerful merchants were swept away. Do the remaining merchants have the financial strength?"

Someone beside him immediately laughed and said:

"What are you afraid of? The merchants around here will smell it and come to fill the gap."

The house was filled with a cheerful atmosphere.

Bei Tiantian added:
"In compliance with your majesty's order, we have already taken control of the raw materials and opened factories, and we are already in the upstream. It is not appropriate for us to get involved in the downstream. We should establish a tiered distributor system, with Guangzhou as a pilot."

"We are all family, so there is no need to hide what we say. Let's discuss it, shall we?"

……

A cotton cloth merchant from Jiangning Prefecture said:
"I have no problem with the three-level dealer system of province-prefecture-county. We eat the meat, and they gnaw on the bones."

"As long as the market scale is developed, our total profit will increase."

"But it's better for the industry to communicate first. Don't let others come to ruin us just as we are reclaiming the wasteland and then turn it into mature fields."

Bei Tiantian nodded:
"I will write to my father and ask him to invite several uncles from the same large factory to have a meal and say hello."

now,

The atmosphere among Jiangnan merchants is highly harmonious.

Everyone has a bright future, and there are vast expanses of blue ocean waiting for you to dive into.

There is no need to steal other people's business and leave a bad reputation.

……

Another person cautiously reminded:

"Don't forget, Guangdong has always had a large-scale silkworm textile, ironware, and porcelain industry."

Bei Tiantian said with a sly smile:

"The old rules: dumping at the competitor's cost price. Tell all retailers that we will subsidize the difference."

"If one month doesn't work, then two months. If two months doesn't work, then three months."

"We want Guangdong people to be able to buy cheap goods and enjoy the grace of our emperor."

……

A cautious person asked:
"Will this go against His Majesty's will?"

Bei Tiantian thought about it for a while and said:

“Our purpose is to integrate, not to destroy.”

"Farmers can sell unsalable raw materials to us, craftsmen can work in our factories, and small workshop owners can ask us to buy their products."

"We could have robbed them! But we held back and chose civilized business methods."

"It was an honest business competition. They can't blame anyone if they lose."

Everyone present nodded solemnly.
Mr. Bei was telling the truth. With the connections in the Chamber of Commerce today, it is indeed possible to rob it openly.

……

【Cold Knowledge:

In terms of daily industrial products, the small peasant economy actually crushed the first generation of industrial economy.

Taking the homespun cloth of the Qing Dynasty as an example, it had a price advantage until the mid-19th century.

Even without considering the shipping cost, the foreign cloth produced by the Saxon factory machines was sold at a higher price than the local cloth. The reason was that the labor cost in the Qing Dynasty was so low that it was almost negligible.

After the Raven Crow, the Saxons opened the door to the Qing Dynasty, only to find to their embarrassing discovery that the industrial products they were so proud of could not be sold in the Qing Dynasty at all, and the prices were higher than those of the handicraft products of the Qing Dynasty.

London factory owners were furious.
No matter how they upgraded the machines, exploited child labor, or extended working hours, they could not reach the costs of the Qing Dynasty.

……

Knowledgeable economists suspected that the Qing Dynasty had secretly kept the world's most advanced management experience, but after salon after salon, they were still in the dark.

After some people conducted personal field investigations, they learned a concept: governing by doing nothing.

The Qing Dynasty did nothing and just lay down.

This made the small group of Europeans who already admired primitivism excited again.

Sociologists lament:
The Forbidden City lost, but in fact it won.

London won, but actually lost.

……

This phenomenon was not reversed until after the Taiping Rebellion.

The Hunan Army set up checkpoints everywhere and trained the Likin Bureau, which raised the cost of commercial circulation across the board and completely destroyed the small peasant economy.

after that,

The small peasant economic system of the Qing Dynasty collapsed, and the market was completely dominated by cheap imported industrial products.

From this point of view, Hong Xiuquan did make contributions to God's people. 】

(End of this chapter)