Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 315 Grain Trade
“Feudalism is still competitive! 』

Looking at Zheng Cai's leaving figure, Zhu Youjian sighed in his heart.

The exchange with Zheng Cai made him know that Zheng Cai's biggest purpose in seeking refuge with him was to obtain a title and a fief.

However, the income from a mere knight's status and fiefdom is definitely not comparable to his shares in Dongning Company.

From Zhu Youjian's perspective, Zheng Cai's shares in Dongning Company have great potential for appreciation. The fief he received was far less valuable than these shares.

But Zheng Cai just wanted the fiefdom, and even risked losing his shares for this.

Zhu Youjian saw the vitality of feudalism in him——

In particular, the true feudal system of feudalism is very attractive to many people.

After all, owning a piece of land that has been passed down from generation to generation is what many people long for. Not to mention being able to still have a title, establish a system as a monarch, and rule his own land:
"Let alone now, even in future generations, the land will be very attractive to the Chinese people. 』

"Even ship kings like Bao Yugang have to abandon their ships and go ashore, let alone pirates like Zheng Zhilong -"

"This is the memorial handed over by the censor of Fujian Province on the fifth day of March."

Although Zheng Zhihu couldn't understand the elaborate words in the memorial, he could clearly understand the six words "please ban foreign ships from entering the sea". He was so anxious that he said loudly:
"We can't ban the sea!"

Zhu Youjian just used this memorial to scare Zheng Zhihu, but he didn't expect his reaction to be so big that he even dared to interrupt Wang Tiqian's reading.

However, thinking that the border army still owed millions in pay, and one million taels of silver could not make up for this gap, Zhu Youjian frowned and said:

When Zheng Zhihu heard the scolding, he realized that he was in front of the emperor. He was so panicked that he hurriedly knelt down to apologize. Zheng Cai and others also knelt down.

"Your Majesty, there are many people living by the sea, so we must not ban them!"

He warned Zheng Zhihu and let the matter go.

Moreover, he used the ministers' superiors to scare them and said:

Rather than being missed by the emperor in the future, it is better to actively donate some money and let the rest of the money pass through.

No wonder Zheng Zhilong and others still seek to recruit troops even though they have the upper hand at sea.

"After all, they are risking their lives at sea, so why not have stable shipping?" 』

"How many more people were killed?"

If they want to use the looted money, these people need to spend more money.

Thinking about the examples of later generations, Zhu Youjian understood more clearly how attractive the feudalism he proposed was.

This matter is extremely confidential and only the leaders know about it. Even Zheng Cai was only vaguely aware of it, but didn't know the details. So when he was secretly summoned by the emperor yesterday, he did not tell him about it.

This was the idea that Zheng Zhilong and others came up with after seeing what happened to the Li family of Marquis Wu Qing.

"Read the King's Palm Seal and tell me what's inside."

After all, in his opinion, the governor is the civil official second only to the governor. Of course, the remarks of such a high official cannot be ignored.

Zhu Youjian listened to Wang Tiqian's rebuke, and after Zheng Zhihu confessed, he said to him:

So these people collected one million taels of silver and asked Zheng Zhihu to present it to the emperor.

They had robbed so much money before, it would be unjustifiable not to spend some money.

Wang Tiqian was so angry that he yelled at him and blamed him for his misconduct in front of the king.

Now he took advantage of the topic and took out this memorial. When Zheng Zhihu heard that Fujian's censor proposed a sea ban, he was so frightened that he hurriedly dissuaded him——

Wang Tiqian, who was standing next to him, immediately took the memorial and read it aloud.

I think the imperial court intends to implement a sea ban.

If not for the encounter with Zheng Zhihu and others a few days after this incident happened, he would not have taken out this memorial.

"In about half a year, it will be sent to the capital."

"But in the future, when you serve as an official in the imperial court, you must study etiquette seriously."

He didn't want to let go of the rest of the property of Zheng Zhilong and others just because he had collected this million.

"Only one million taels?"

He had known about this memorial for a long time, and even approved it according to the emperor's wishes. Now when he reads it aloud, he is really fluent. He even tried to figure out the emperor's meaning and carefully read the key points in it to everyone.

Therefore, Zhu Youjian was more confident when he formally met with Zheng Zhihu, Zheng Cai and others the next day.

Zhu Youjian was extremely happy when he heard it now. Because what he lacks most is money, he needs money to pay the border troops. Zheng Zhilong and others took the initiative to donate silver, which relieved his urgent need.

"Thanks to His Majesty's invitation, I, my brother and others are willing to donate one million silver to atone for past sins."

Hearing this, Zheng Zhihu hurriedly thanked the emperor for not holding him accountable. He also told one thing that his brother Zheng Zhilong had ordered:

"Before I leave, my brother and other brothers are already preparing money."

"Since you have just been recruited, I will not hold you accountable for your fault this time."

"Nowadays, the imperial court is recreating rituals and music. Etiquette matters must not be taken lightly."

After all, in their view, the emperor's purpose in confiscating Wu Qinghou's house was money.

In fact, Zhu Youjian had not paid attention to this memorial at all before, and did not even bother to discuss it in the court. Just let Wang Tiqian approve the decision according to his own wishes on the basis of the cabinet vote.

"How much money did you rob before?"

Zheng Zhihu hadn't heard the emperor's bargaining. He just thought that the emperor was going to pursue his previous sins. He was so frightened that he knelt on the ground and begged:

"His Majesty has spoken so eloquently, he already said that he would be pardoned when he was recruited."

"You can't go back on your word, and now you're asking for guilt!"

Hearing this, Zhu Youjian's face darkened and he said to him in a deep voice:

"The punishment prescribed by the imperial court can be pardoned during recruitment, but the harm you have caused to others must be compensated."

"Go back and tell your brother and others to put one million taels of silver in Sihai Bank, under the supervision of the bank, to establish the Dongning Charity Foundation."

"If there is a victim who seeks revenge in the future, in addition to apologizing, he must also take money from the fund to compensate those who were harmed." "In short, use money to seek forgiveness from the family members of the victims. Don't think that you have been punished. Just disappear.”

"Especially if it involves casualties, you'd better be proactive."

After saying it several times, focusing on "casualties" and "injury", Zheng Zhihu finally understood what the emperor meant. He knew that the things stolen did not need to be returned, but if someone was killed or injured during the robbery and the owner came to find him, he would need to compensate. these people.

This seemed to him a matter of course. It was something he needed to do in order to have a good relationship with the people in his hometown, so he happily accepted it and said:
"Big brother asked us to be benevolent and righteous. Wherever we go, we should only repay the order with water, but never kill anyone."

"If someone is really killed, my eldest brother and I will definitely take the initiative to apologize and seek forgiveness from the sufferer."

At this moment, he was really grateful to his elder brother for his foresight. Otherwise, the emperor's order would make them unable to cope with the suffering master. Unlike now, I agreed so easily.

Even Zheng Cai started to admire Zheng Zhilong's "hypocritical" behavior.

At that time, when Zheng Zhilong issued such an order, many pirates disapproved of it and even called it "hypocrisy."

Now that the emperor mentioned compensation for the families of the victims, Zheng Cai finally felt the foresight of Zheng Zhilong in doing so.

He even thought that after Zheng Zhilong was recruited, he could return to his hometown openly. Unlike some bandits, even if they are recruited, they cannot stay in their hometown.

Zhu Youjian frightened him and squeezed out another one million taels of money. He felt that he could not force him too much. He looked at the map on the desk and said:
"Fujian is not far from Vietnam. You should be able to buy food, right?"

"Zheng Caiqian came and asked, can you buy all the one million taels of silver into grain and transport it to the capital?"

Zheng Cai heard the emperor's question and hurriedly replied:
"Vietnam is a bit far away, so I thought we could go to Luzon to buy food."

"Dozens of ships pass through Dongning every year. They carry goods there, but most of them have nothing to buy when they return."

"I thought we could let these people buy food from Luzon."

Today's Ming Dynasty is really rich in products and has no need for foreign goods. With unparalleled manufacturing capabilities in silk, porcelain, etc., trade with any country was a surplus.

It can even be said that the Ming Dynasty only needed the silver mined by foreigners from the colonies, and other commodities shipped by the foreigners were difficult to sell in the Ming Dynasty.

This is also what worries the Ming Dynasty's maritime merchants, that is, they can be fully loaded with goods when they go to sea, but when they come back, they can only bring high-value items such as silver and spices.

In order to ensure the stability of the ship, they sometimes need ballast stones to prevent the ship from running empty at sea and becoming unstable when encountering wind and waves.

Therefore, Zheng Cai believes that these maritime merchants can be allowed to transport food on their return trip without much freight. Forgive those merchants at sea who dare not disobey them.

Zhu Youjian was extremely happy when he heard Zheng Cai's answer. But he still had some doubts about how much food Luzon could provide, and asked:

"Are there many people in Luzon now?"

"How much food can be produced there every year?"

Zheng Cai just thought that Luzon was close to Dongning, but he did not expect that the emperor wanted to buy a lot of food. He could only think about the situation in Luzon and argued:
"There are hundreds of thousands of people in Luzon now. There are tens of thousands of people from the Ming Dynasty alone, and there are thousands of Folangji people."

"The land there is fertile and the food grows quickly. The food produced is large and can be purchased for hundreds of thousands of stones."

"If there is still a shortage, Nanyang knows the merchants who harvested grain in the Ming Dynasty and will take the initiative to transport grain there."

This made Zhu Youjian nodded, and at the same time he was surprised by the population distribution of Luzon. It turns out that there are only a few thousand Spaniards in this so-called Spanish colony. No wonder they are worried about the Chinese and sow discord between the Chinese and the indigenous people.

Thinking of the Chinese Massacre in Manila a few years ago, Zhu Youjian gave them a hard note and planned to free up his hands to teach the Spaniards a lesson.

A stronghold with thousands of people is too small compared to the Ming Dynasty. As long as Xu Guangqi's new army is trained, these people can be defeated on land.

The difficulty is that Luzon is an island, and landing requires control of the sea. Without a strong navy, it would be useless to defeat the Spanish. It might also interrupt the galleon trade and prevent Spanish merchant ships from coming from the Americas.

So Zhu Youjian could only write down this incident, and he is still holding his nose and doing business with the Spaniards:

“If you can buy food, buy it!”

"The money you gave to me, as well as the future dividends from my company in Dongning, will be bought as grain and shipped here."

"The price I give you is seven cents per stone of grain. How much can be transported will be worth the amount of wealth."

"I don't care how much you make from it, but the food shipped every year cannot be less than one million dan."

Zheng Cai was overjoyed when she heard this. Because the price offered by the emperor for purchasing grain was relatively high, and he paid as much as he could get.

Although this kind of business cannot be called huge profits, as long as it can be opened up, you can make stable profits.

What he needed to calculate was whether purchasing grain from Nanyang and transporting it would result in a loss?
After all, the risks of shipping are still relatively high now. Zheng Cai and Zheng Zhihu have made several trips in the past few months and encountered many risks in the process. When transporting grain via this route, it is obvious that drifting at sea must be taken into account.

After a rough calculation, Zheng Cai felt that the possibility of losing money was unlikely and quickly agreed to the matter. He also asked the emperor to dredge the waterway and allow docking along the coast to avoid maritime risks.

Zhu Youjian agreed immediately and asked him to go to the Navy Yamen to find the Navigation Department to clean up the rocks along the way and build a navigation lighthouse. It is necessary to improve the north-south shipping lines and reduce shipping risks.

If this route can transport food stably, Ming Dynasty will have a blood transfusion line. Food shipped from overseas will make up for the food shortage in the capital. In this way, the grain transported from the south to the capital can be moved and transported to Shaanxi to relieve the victims.

And for Zhu Youjian, what he lacks now is food. As long as there is enough food, the soldiers can be fed. Then the soldiers' basic combat capabilities are guaranteed, and they will not easily flee and transform from border troops to refugees.

Therefore, when it was impossible to repay all the arrears for the time being, Zhu Youjian decided to distribute food to ensure the basic survival of these people first.

If Nanyang sees a way to make money and develops more land to grow food, or even proactively transports food over, Zhu Youjian will be even more pleased and trade with them using silk, porcelain and other commodities produced in the Ming Dynasty.

Thinking of this, Zhu Youjian introduced another policy and said:

"When you go back, you must tell all maritime merchants: Merchants who come to Tianjin to trade can use grain to deduct taxes."

"The General Administration of Customs will issue receipts and exempt food such as grain and oil from import taxes."

"The demand for food here in the capital is unlimited. Let them transport the food here with confidence."

These words made Zheng Cai even more happy, realizing that he could unite with the maritime merchants in the south to jointly develop this food route.

Although there are currently very few merchants running this route, he feels that stimulated by the grain trade, this route will soon become popular.

And as far as he knew, the porcelain in Dingzhou was pretty good, and the Yongping Prefecture area near Tianjin was also rich in pottery, such as poppies, urns, basins, etc., which could be sold at a good price overseas. Even mountain cocoon silk from Shandong may be sold.

If they were not limited to selling to foreigners, furs, cattle and horses from the northern grasslands could all be sold to the south.

Merchant ships coming to the north don't have to worry about what to transport when they return.

It can be said that there are many products in the north, and there is great potential for north-south trade.

(End of this chapter)