Smuggling Daming

Jiang Bin and several brothers who share life and death are eating roasted sweet potatoes while looking forward to a better life after entering Beijing. Zhou Zhong, who is far away in Songjiang Mansion, is also eating roasted sweet potatoes with others, but he is not as good as Jiang Bin as the governor. For such a small matter of command, at least people are still around the fire in the house, eating sweet potatoes warmly, and drinking tea when they are thirsty, but he can only light a fire in the wild and warm himself by the fire. While eating sweet potatoes in the cold wind.

This is a piece of wasteland on the east coast of Songjiang Mansion. Zhou Zhong, Wang Shouren, and Jiao Fang are surrounded by a big fire, and there are many people around who are taking measurements with bamboo poles. It looks like they are surveying something. of.

A few months ago, Zhou Zhong, who received Zhengde's order, finally moved the seat of the Governor's Mansion of the World from Shuangyu Port to Songjiang. As soon as the news came out, both Shuangyu Port and Songjiang Mansion caused a huge commotion. Everyone in the mansion is very excited, because they all know that the Mansion of the Governor of the World is in charge of maritime trade. If the government office is moved here, it will definitely boost the local economy. The rich can use this to expand their family wealth, and the poor can earn more money. Therefore, everyone from top to bottom welcomes this matter very much.

But Shuangyu Port has aroused many people's concerns. After all, Shuangyu Port is originally a small area. It used to rely on smuggling to start its business, and then with the support of the Governor's Office, it was able to develop into a large port with tens of thousands of people. Now, if the Governor's Mansion is moved to Songjiang, it will definitely have a huge impact on the maritime trade of Shuangyu Port. Therefore, after receiving the news, many people immediately ran to Songjiang as quickly as possible, and then bought land and properties.

The relocation of the administrative office was agreed long ago.Moreover, it is related to the future development of the Governor's Mansion. Zhou Zhong and the others have already anticipated some possible consequences after the relocation, so they will not make changes in consideration of the interests of some people, and in order to show the relocation Determined, Zhou Zhong took the lead in moving the Governor's Mansion from Shuangyu Port to Songjiang Mansion. Before the construction of the new Governor's Mansion started, he temporarily used Zhou's old house as the Governor's Mansion, which was a bit crowded.But you can make do with it.

After the Governor’s Mansion moved to Songjiang Mansion, the local prefect also actively cooperated. Xu Shenzhong’s father has been transferred to the capital to take up a post. The current prefect’s name is Yu Ji, who has the same name as a magic stick in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. He is a middle-aged man in his 40s. .He was fat and fat, very sleek, and he flattered Zhou Zhong, the new boss, in every possible way, and even offered to let Zhou Zhong work in the magistrate's office, but Zhou Zhong refused.

After the Governor's Mansion was moved, subordinate yamen such as Wang Shouren and Jiao Fang also began to move to Songjiang.The new yamen haven't been built yet, so they can only be like Zhou Zhong's Governor's Mansion.Temporarily renting a private house to live in and work in. Although the Songjiang Mansion is not big, there are still many empty houses, especially some people are scrambling to give up their houses in order to curry favor with various yamen, so people like the inspector The subordinate yamen was quickly settled.

After Wang Shouren made arrangements for the inspector general, he and Zhou Zhong immediately started planning for the Naval Academy.Speaking of which, the navy was not valued by the imperial court, and most of the attention was attracted by the Army Military Academy in Beijing.Therefore, the resistance of the Naval Military Academy is very small, and the teachers and students are almost ready, and they are waiting for the military academy to be built and start classes.

Today, on a whim, Zhou Zhong came to the construction site of the military academy with Wang Shouren and Jiao Fang. This is a hilly area near the sea on the east side of Songjiang Mansion. The entire military academy is built on a hill facing the sea, and the side facing the sea is the military academy. The main body of the school, the school buildings, canteens, dormitories, etc., have almost been built. Some of the school buildings built earlier have begun to have instructors teaching in them, but the training ground in the back mountain has not yet started construction. It is to supervise the test of the training ground.

Speaking of the training ground of the military academy, it is not just the kind of training ground in the ordinary barracks of the Ming Dynasty. The school building is small, and it even costs more money. After all, students in the military academy don’t just sit in the classroom and study. Most of the time, they need to transform the knowledge they have learned into practical skills on the training ground. Qualified cadets.

It is already the winter of the ninth year of Zhengde. Although this year's winter is not as cold as the seventh year of Zhengde, it has come very early, and the temperature has dropped rapidly. At least it is much colder than usual winters. For example, Zhou Zhong and the others The three supervised the craftsmen's measurement of the training ground for a while in the back mountain, and after a while, the mountain wind here made the whole body chill, and the elderly Jiao Fang couldn't bear it even more, and his nose was running. Out.

Zhou Zhong himself couldn't bear the cold. The winter here in Songjiang is cold and humid. A small wind blows people's whole body like soaking in ice water. Let alone a northerner like Jiao Fang, even Zhou Zhong like this in Songjiang Grown-ups can't stand it either.

So under such circumstances, Zhou Zhong took Jiao Fang to find a leeward place, asked the guards to cut some dry branches to start a fire, and found some sweet potatoes from the canteen where the craftsmen cooked, and waited until the fire started. , Divide out a pile of black ash that was half burnt inside, and then put the sweet potatoes inside and bury them.

After their bodies were heated up, the sweet potatoes inside were almost stewed, and just when they were about to eat, Wang Shouren also came over after smelling the smell, and the three senior officials of the Governor's Mansion were chatting while picking up the sweet potatoes in the ashes. Come out, uncover the scorched black outer skin, revealing the topaz-like tender meat inside, a sweet smell whets one's appetite, and no one is polite at the moment, burying his head in eating, after a while , the hands and faces of the three of them were all black and gray, and they didn't have the slightest demeanor of being an official.

"My lord, the sweet potato you presented to the imperial court is really good. Not only does it have a high yield, but it can also be eaten raw or cooked. I heard that farmers all over the Ming Dynasty are planting this kind of thing, and even the frontier soldiers have already grown sweet potatoes. The military rations are gone, and I have achieved self-sufficiency in food in the north, and I am not so dependent on the food in the south, so I can save a lot of freight, not to mention other manpower and material resources." Wang Shouren ate roasted sweet potatoes, and smiled with black ashes all over his mouth.

"Hahaha~, so our Daming can't just focus on the country, but look outside. Look at the sweet potatoes, corn and peppers. These are all produced in the mainland thousands of miles away. There are not only these few Why did the Portuguese agree to compensate us 200 million taels of silver at once? The main reason is that the New World discovered by the Europeans is rich in silver and gold, which makes European silver not very valuable. Copper, gold, and silver, which is also abundant in Japan, are all urgently needed by our Ming Dynasty, and we only need to maintain a strong navy, and we can ask for these overseas resources, and military training is the first step for Ming Dynasty to go to the sea!" After hearing this, Zhou Zhong also laughed and said that his words are not in line with Daming's mainstream values, and even in the eyes of some scholars, they are no doubt like robbers.

Hearing Zhou Zhong's description of the overseas, Jiao Fang also laughed and said: "Not bad, not bad, the old man has lived his whole life, and his eyes are only limited to the Ming Dynasty, but it was not until he came to the Governor's Mansion that we realized that our world is very big. , Overseas products are even more abundant than Daming, if we don’t take them, sooner or later it will be cheaper for others, so we Daming must not be polite!”

Jiao Fang has lived to such a great age, he has seen through the world long ago, and he is not as pedantic as ordinary scholars. He also supports Zhou Zhong's robber theory, and even in his opinion, as long as it can make the people of Ming Dynasty live On a good day, even if it is to snatch up all overseas, it is normal.

Wang Shouren is not only a master of Confucianism, but also a philosopher. When he first heard Zhou Zhong's robber theory, what he thought of was the riots he saw in Nanyang and the disgust of the local Han people towards those natives. The population of China is already overloaded. If you want to keep the extra people alive, you can only start to expand outward. In the process of expansion, you will definitely fight with the outside ethnic groups. As for the overseas resources mentioned by Zhou Zhong, In his opinion, it is just a bait to attract the people of Daming to migrate. After all, everyone is pursuing profit. Only when they see the real benefits of gold and silver can they attract more people to migrate from Daming, such as Now there are rumors that a lot of gold and copper mines have been discovered in Nanyang. It is said that some people have taken the initiative to take a boat to Nanyang to pan for gold along the coast of Daming.

Thinking of Nanyang, Wang Shouren suddenly thought of something, and said immediately: "My lord, some time ago, according to reports from some businessmen who went to India, the Portuguese seem to have begun to increase their troops in India again, and at the same time, many warships arrived in India from Europe. , do you think the Portuguese will continue to attack Nanyang again?"

"Brother Bo'an, you have to remember one thing. Those small European countries, whether they are Portuguese or Spanish, or even French, English, etc., these Europeans are all a group of robbers. Nanyang will never give up. What we have to do now is to increase our strength as quickly as possible, and then completely defeat them at sea, and even let them go back to their hometown in Europe forever. Only in this way, our Daming will be even stronger Be safe!" Zhou Zhong finally said viciously, he didn't have the slightest affection for those European bandits, if it wasn't too far away, he really wanted to lead Ming's fleet to Europe and let those European white-skinned ghosts have a taste of it. Taste the power of the Ming bandits. (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for recommendations and monthly tickets. Your support is my biggest motivation.)