At the end of Qin, I became a son of the plane

Chapter 595: The Struggle between Imperial Power and Prime Ministerial Power and the Resurgence of Carthage
October 38, 10nd year of the Han calendar

As a trade node in the West, the Age of Navigation brought endless wealth to the Port of Alexandria. It also brought countless adventurers, merchants, and financiers from around the world, all of whom gathered in this global maritime trade node.

Now the outside population of Alexandria exceeds 20, including Han people, Huns, Gauls, Celts, and even Mayans. Its diverse population ratio is catching up with Chang'an City of this era. Now the population of Alexandria has more than doubled, becoming the largest city in the entire Mediterranean region. It is a city where civilization and advancement, barbarism and backwardness, steam engines and slaves are intertwined. This strange scene is called steampunk in the words of later generations, but the adventurers who come to this world like to call it the Magic City.

The Consulate General of Daqinzhou in Alexandria is the most prosperous core area of ​​the entire Alexandria. Countless maritime merchants of the Han Dynasty built their mansions here, and in just a few years it became a vast Han city.

Countless wealth flowed through here to the entire Mediterranean, making it the political and economic center of the entire Mediterranean region.

Especially after the Han Dynasty distributed some agricultural industries to the Mediterranean countries, Zhang Pijiang, the Consul General of Daqinzhou, was the most powerful person in the entire Mediterranean. But today, Zhang Pijiang, the Consul General of Daqinzhou, has become a trash can for complaints.

"Your Majesty, how can you do this? My father followed the retired emperor to fight on the battlefield, and in the following decades he worked hard to govern the Han Dynasty. He was even more cautious in his role as prime minister in recent years. He is a veteran with outstanding achievements. My father has worked hard for the development of the Han Dynasty. Now my father has only two years left in his term. Can't Your Majesty even wait for this period of time?" Li Ji said angrily.

Zhang Pijiang advised, "We don't know anything in Daqinzhou. Don't act rashly. It's better to wait for news. Besides, the emperor is also in Chang'an City. Your father is the emperor's old brother. He will never see your father being wronged."

After Xu Aimin became the second emperor of the Han Dynasty, he had always been in conflict with Prime Minister Li Shang. The two sides had different opinions on everything from accelerating the development of agricultural cooperatives to expanding the scope of state-owned enterprises.

Li Shang believed that haste makes waste. Given the huge size of the Han Dynasty, no matter how fast any policy is formulated, it cannot be done. If it is done quickly, problems may arise. All policies must be piloted first to see their advantages and disadvantages, and then gradually promoted. He also took the example of agricultural tax reform. It took more than 20 years for the Han Dynasty to reduce the tax rate to 4%, and it took two prime ministers and four terms to complete it.

However, Shangshu Ling Jia Yi believed that the Han Dynasty could develop its light industrial sector slowly, but the court must have control over it. Industries that were fundamental to the country, such as steel, railways, machinery manufacturing, oil refining, money banks, education, and medical care, should be completely controlled by the court, and no private individuals should enter these industries.

The two sides argued for a long time over the full government-run operation of these industries. The emperor supported Jia Yi, but the prime minister Li Shang disagreed. There was no way to implement the reforms that Jia Yi wanted.

This caused conflicts between Prime Minister Li Shang and the emperor. In addition, Li Shang also believed that he had seniority and would sometimes talk about what the retired emperor would have done in the past. This made the emperor even more dissatisfied with Prime Minister Li Shang.

In May of this year, Prime Minister Li Shang piloted commercial tax reform measures in Shangjun. The original taxation of the Han Dynasty was to collect 30% tax directly from the production end, which has become increasingly unsuitable for the current Han Dynasty. Li Shang wanted to reform and reduce production taxes and increase circulation taxes. At the same time, he also wanted to make some political achievements.

Several prime ministers of the Han Dynasty had made outstanding achievements, but his term of office was about to end. The biggest impact on the world was the reduction of agricultural taxes. Now the Han Dynasty collects one bushel of grain tax per mu of land. With the current grain production capacity of 4 bushels per mu, this is out of , which is an unprecedented low tax. However, the achievement of reducing agricultural taxes was mainly done by Zhou Bo, but it took the Han Dynasty nearly years to reduce it to such a low level.

At most, Li Shang gained a reputation as a man who followed the rules of Zhou. He also wanted to make a reform so that his name would go down in history. To this end, Li Shang convened a meeting of the Prime Minister's Office and thought of reforming commercial taxes, which he planned to pilot in Shangjun.

But it was this pilot reform that completely detonated the conflict between the two sides. At that time, Xu Aimin was inspecting the shipyard in Kuaiji County. After learning about the prime minister's commercial tax reform, he became furious.

"Even I, the emperor, don't know about such a big thing as commercial tax reform. Is Li Shang serving as prime minister or emperor? Is he trying to reform the commercial tax for the Han Dynasty or to leave his name in history?" Xu Aimin had tolerated Li Shang's abuse of his seniority for more than two years, and his anger completely erupted because of this matter.

When these words were spoken, the whole audience was shocked. Even though Jia Yi later issued an order to gag the news, too many people heard it and the news could not be concealed. Soon the news spread throughout the entire Han Dynasty. The key point was that when this kind of gossip spread, its meaning would inevitably be distorted. When the news spread to the north, it even said that Li Shang wanted to rebel and become emperor, causing unrest throughout the northern part of the Han Dynasty.

For this reason, Xu Aimin had to end his inspection of the south and quickly return to Chang'an City. He and Prime Minister Li Shang convened a grand court meeting to eliminate the impact, but the discord between the emperor and the prime minister was already known to everyone in the Han Dynasty.

After several months of spreading, even their Consulate General in Daqinzhou knew about it. After Li Ji of the Seleucid Empire learned about it, he specially went to Alexandria to complain.

In Li Ji's opinion, His Majesty had gone too far in this matter. Although his father had some selfish motives, this reform was also a measure that was beneficial to the Han Dynasty, and it was still in the pilot stage. Which prime minister of the Han Dynasty had not carried out pilot reforms? Why should the emperor be so ruthless and let his father lose face? Once this incident happened, how would his father manage the Han Dynasty?

Zhang Pijiang also sighed when he saw the direction of Chang'an City. There was no right or wrong in this matter. During the reign of the Supreme Emperor, he only set the tone for the major policies of the court, such as the Great Harmony, the elimination of hunger, food and clothing, etc. The specific implementation was all carried out by the Prime Minister's Office. The emperor only did a good job of supervision and seldom asked about the specific tasks performed by the prime minister.

Everyone has been living like this for more than 30 years. In the beginning, they thought the prime minister had too much power, but now they have become accustomed to it. Even Prime Minister Li Shang does not think there is anything wrong with just conducting a pilot project in Shangjun.

But this made Xu Aimin feel that his rights were encroached upon by the prime minister. The executive power of the prime minister's office was already extremely large, and now it could make its own decrees. What rights did he have as the emperor? The only power left was to supervise the execution of the prime minister's office? Wouldn't he, the emperor, become the Imperial Censor?

After Xu Aimin became emperor, he expanded the attendants of the Secretariat. Although he did not pay much attention to the affairs of the Han Dynasty, he did focus his main energy on state affairs, and often issued orders from the Secretariat to direct the Nine Ministers.

Such an order without going through the proper channels caused dissatisfaction among Li Shang, who believed that the emperor was encroaching upon the power of the prime minister's office. In fact, the three dukes and nine ministers of the Han Dynasty were also dissatisfied. They were colleagues with the prime minister and could discuss government affairs with him, but they could only execute the emperor's orders.

But they could not point the finger directly at the emperor and could only point it at Jia Yi. As a result, Shangshu Ling Jia Yi's reputation in the Han court plummeted and he became one of the treacherous villains around the emperor.

But Xu Aimin was also dissatisfied with the past two years as emperor. Those veteran ministers would always say that the matter should be handed over to the retired emperor, and ask how the retired emperor would deal with it. Or they would say that the veteran ministers were experienced and should be handed over to the veteran ministers. Xu Aimin could clearly feel that these veterans of the Han Dynasty lacked enough respect for him, so he exploded after enduring these old ministers for more than two years.

The consequences of this were enormous. The Han Dynasty was the undisputed center of the world. This matter spread within the Han Dynasty for a month and soon spread to the Western Regions, India, the Xiongnu, and Daqinzhou.

Alexandria, Zhao Mansion.

"Father, the Romans have agreed to allow our Feihai Bank to enter their capital." Zhao Gang said.

Zhao Gang is 30 years old this year and is Hu Hai's eldest son. When Hu Hai first started out, Li Si didn't know Xu Fan well and was worried that Hu Hai would cause a disaster sooner or later and implicate his daughter and grandson, so he took the two to his house and Li Si personally taught Zhao Gang.

But after more experiences, Li Si realized that Xu Fan was really not worried at all about the remnants of the previous dynasty of the First Emperor. Even someone as high-flying as Hu Hai had not gotten into trouble, so he felt relieved.

After Hu Hai established his career in Tianzhu, he saw that his eldest son had grown up, so he let Zhao Gang work as a clerk in Fei Hai Money House. Now that Hu Hai is older, he has gradually handed over the management of Fei Hai Money House to his eldest son.

When he heard what Zhao Gang said, he didn't pay much attention to it, but continued to read the latest issue of the Han Weekly. He read it very carefully. Hearing what Zhao Gang said, he said calmly: "Rome is not a small country. Being able to enter Rome, Feihai Bank has an extra way out."

Zhao Gang hesitated and asked, "Are we leaving Tianzhu like this?"

"Tianzhu is our foundation, and Feihai Bank will never leave Tianzhu, but our family's identity is sensitive, and it's always right to have three burrows."

Zhao Gang said: "Your Majesty is not so stingy. Father was so active back then, but nothing happened to him."

Zhao Gang even found it funny in his heart. Wasn’t it too late for his father to feel scared at this moment?

Hu Hai said with emotion: "Times have changed. I believe in the magnanimity of the Han Emperor. He will not care about my little tricks. Even if I raise the flag of Qin again, I am afraid he will just smile at each other and not care. But I don't believe in the current Han Emperor. Just look at how he couldn't wait to enfeoff his younger brother to Tianzhu and split up the Tianzhu Trading Company right after he ascended the throne. These are nothing. We all know that the Tianzhu Trading Company cannot control a country for a long time.

But from the fact that he couldn't even tolerate Li Shang, who was about to retire, it can be seen that his mind is far less broad than that of the Han emperor. Who knows, will he think that our Feihai Bank is too powerful and continue to split up my father's business. "

The older Hu Hai gets, the less courage he has. When the Tianzhu Trading Company was split up a few years ago, he took the initiative to divest the Fei Hai Money House and the Tianzhu Trading Company's assets completely. He originally wanted to give the Tianzhu King Xu Aijun's assets to him, but unfortunately the King was too wealthy to use force and directly purchased these assets at the market price, and used them to form the Tianzhu Shaofu.

Of course, Hu Hai originally intended to give the money away and had no intention of taking it back. He simply used the money to donate to the Tianzhu Kingdom to build middle schools and elementary schools. Because of Hu Hai's generous donation, Xu Aijun had a new respect for Hu Hai, the slave trader. Hu Hai's Feihai Bank was not affected by the split of the Tianzhu Trading Company.

But when the news of the conflict between Xu Aimin and Prime Minister Li Shang reached Tianzhu, Hu Hai was frightened and sweated profusely. He realized that Xu Aimin was not as generous as his father. As a remnant of the previous dynasty, it was good that he had not been discovered. If he was discovered, it was still unknown whether he could save his life. Because he had been engaged in the slave trade, his reputation had been tarnished in the Han Dynasty. People like him being punished by the emperor was a scene that the Han people liked to see.

More importantly, he didn't even know whether Xu Aimin had already set his sights on him, and only did not take action against him because of pressure from Xu Fan. Han Emperor Xu Fan was over 60 years old, and no one knew how many years he had left to live. It would be fine if he died ahead of the Han Emperor, but if he died behind him, the consequences would be something Hu Hai could not even imagine.

Therefore, Hu Hai simply came to Alexandria Port first, and at the same time wanted to expand the business of Fei Hai Money House to Daqinzhou. This is where the influence of the Han Emperor is weakest, and it is also the place where these remnants of the previous dynasty can best survive.

Zhao Gang hesitated and said, "Father, you are overthinking it. With the current prosperity of the Han Dynasty, they will not care about you, the king of a fallen country."

Hu Hai said: "Who can predict what will happen in the world? Back then, our Qin was so powerful that it could destroy the six kingdoms. It was the most powerful emperor. But who could have thought that it would be destroyed by the Han Emperor and 800 prisoners?"

“When the Han Dynasty was first established, after hundreds of years of chaos during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, who could have imagined that the Han Dynasty would be so powerful and far surpass all previous dynasties.

Similarly, who could have imagined that the Han Emperor, as the first emperor of the Three Dynasties, whose prestige was close to that of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, would abdicate as soon as he said so. There are too many unexpected things in this world, so many that you can't believe them at all. It's better to prepare a few more ways to escape. "

"I think Rome has the advantage of developing merchants, and it also has soldiers who have been awarded titles for their military merits in the Qin Dynasty. Its national system is simply a smaller version of the Han Dynasty. Rome has the potential to be a hidden dragon."

"Rome, Qianlong?" Zhao Gang didn't believe it at all. Rome was only the size of three or four counties of the Han Dynasty, with a population of only a few million, and most of them were slaves. The gap between Rome and the Han Dynasty was simply incalculable.

Hu Hai stood up and said, "We will know when we go to Rome. Let's go and see this foreign republic."

November 38, 11th year of the Han calendar, Rome.

Hu Hai and his son followed Apatius to Rome.

Later, Hu Hai bought a shop in Rome and opened the first Fei Hai Money House in the city. The first business was to lend money to Romans' ranches. The investment of hundreds of millions of dollars aroused great interest of the elders of Rome in Fei Hai Money House. Although the elders of Rome were wealthy, most of their property was real estate. It was almost impossible to ask them to take out hundreds of millions of dollars. In Rome, only the temples could provide so much operating funds.

But compared with the greedy monks in the temple, Feihai Money House, which offered 10% interest on deposits and 25% on loans, was welcomed by the Roman senators and aristocrats. For the first time, the Roman aristocrats knew that they could make money by saving money. The temple only greedily asked them to pay custody fees and an interest of nine-tenths. With such a strong contrast, Hu Hai could even be called a great philanthropist in the city of Rome. Many aristocrats were even considering whether to deposit their own money in Feihai Money House.

Of course, in contrast, the monks all looked at Hu Hai with hatred, thinking that he was a troublemaker, Satan from hell.

Hu Hai could easily see these looks, this kind of look was too familiar, when he was in India, those monks wanted to cut him into pieces. If this happened in India, Hu Hai would definitely fight back strongly, what gods, how many temples he had demolished, how many statues he had smashed, how could they not know whether this thing was useful or not.

But now he no longer has the Han Dynasty as his backer, and Rome is also a country with abundant martial virtues, so he can only use another method.

November 38, the 11th year of the Han calendar, Rome, Senate.

As soon as Apatius entered the Senate, all the senators applauded and welcomed this meritorious official. He not only brought Rome a low-interest loan of 100 million coins, but also opened up trade between Rome and the Han Dynasty. In the future, as long as they produced milk powder, cheese, and butter, they could exchange them for money from the Han Dynasty, and then buy all the goods from the Han Dynasty, such as a large amount of silk, tea, and spices. These goods flooded into them, earning them countless gold coins, and the applause of these senators became even more intense.

But Apatius stopped the senators from applauding and said with a serious face: "The most powerful enemy of Rome, the Carthaginians, have risen again. Now they have monopolized half of the trade relations with the Han people. The number of merchant ships has expanded to more than a thousand again, of which more than 300 12-ton warships were purchased from the Han people. We in Rome have less than 5 such large warships. More importantly, the Carthaginians have expanded again."

Apatius took out a map of the Mediterranean and said, "The Carthaginians have captured the Celtic territory right under our noses. They have occupied these three islands and built cities."

After discovering that the Carthaginian fleet was so numerous that it was a bit scary, Apatius investigated the situation of the Carthaginians and found that not only had they recovered their strength, but they were even expanding again.

As soon as he finished speaking, the entire Senate fell silent. The pain that the Carthaginians brought to the Romans was too deep. In the Second Punic War, more than 5 elite Roman troops were wiped out, causing almost every family in Rome to be in mourning. In addition, Hannibal led his expeditionary force to burn, kill and loot in the heart of Rome for more than a year, bringing Rome painful war pains that have not been healed even now.

(End of this chapter)