Ming Dynasty man

Chapter 646 Gold Reserve
It took a while for Zhu Youjian to react, and after thinking for a while, he said: "You just said that you want to order warships from the Dutch, can't it be true? One warship costs 10 taels of silver, and 300 ships cost [-] million. Can the Ministry of Households afford so much money? Even if they can afford it, let foreigners build ships and let them make money, what about our own shipyards?"

Li Jing shook his head and sighed softly: "Your Majesty, do you know that none of the warships manufactured by our Ming Dynasty are capable of ocean-going operations, because the structure of our ships is not suitable for ocean-going operations. Moreover, our ships are too small to carry The supplies and ammunition needed for long-distance voyages were lost.

We only have the [-] or so warships of the First Fleet under Zheng Zhilong's command that are capable of long-distance voyages, and that was bought by Zheng Zhilong from foreigners back then.But these twenty or so warships are far less advanced than the Dutch warships.

If Ming Dynasty is to be strong, it cannot rely solely on the army. Anyone who offends our Ming Dynasty will be punished even if it is far away, but without a strong navy, this is empty talk.Therefore, only when the navy is strong can Ming be truly powerful.

However, Daming's current shipbuilding technology is far behind that of Western countries. Although I try my best to recruit talents from the West, there are only a small number of people who are willing to come to Daming, and there will inevitably be impostors among them.Therefore, we must find a way to get countries with advanced shipbuilding technology to take the initiative to send people to our Daming.

This is the purpose of my shipbuilding order to the Dutch. I want the Dutch to take the initiative to come to Daming to build a shipyard, so that they will send a large number of technicians who know how to build ships to our Daming.From the perspective of money, we are indeed at a loss, but we can learn shipbuilding technology, which cannot be bought with money.

As for the emperor's worry that the treasury has no money, the emperor is completely overwhelmed.What I just talked about with De Bauer was only the intention, and he needs to report it to the country, and then the people in the country have to make an assessment, and they will build the factory only if they think it is profitable.Even so, they will not agree immediately, and will negotiate with us to strive for greater benefits.

The Netherlands went back and forth to Daming for nearly a year. Even if they were efficient and made a decision after only one discussion, it would still be next year.Then they have to choose a site to build a shipyard, which cannot be built in a day or two.

Don't forget, when Sun Chuanting went to Shandong to build a shipyard, it took more than half a year to rebuild on the basis of Rongshanwei Shipyard. The Dutch built a new shipyard, and it took two or three years to complete it.In other words, it will be at least four years before the Dutch shipyard can build ships.

Four years from now, unless there is a catastrophe every year next year, tens of millions of taels of silver will be spent every year for disaster relief, otherwise it will not be impossible to save even a few million taels of silver, right? "

Zhu Youjian laughed and said: "It's hard to say, brother Li spent more money in the past three years in power than I spent in ten years combined. Much more."

"Hahaha!" Li Jingwen couldn't help laughing out loud.

After a while, Li Jing smiled and said: "Your Majesty, do you know that although the country has not saved any silver in the past two years, it has saved a lot of gold. I have ordered the gold to be cast into gold ingots for storage. "

"How much gold is there?" Zhu Youjian was pleasantly surprised when he heard the words.

"Now the treasury has at least 60 taels of gold." Li Jing smiled.

"So many?" Zhu Youjian asked in surprise.

Li Jing shook his head, sighed softly and said, "Your Majesty, do you know? Our Ming Dynasty is not poor, only the imperial court, those princes and nobles, those gentry, landlords and rich merchants, tried their best not to pay taxes to the country. And those corrupt officials Officials, hundreds of thousands or even tens of thousands of people are involved in corruption and bribery. Your Majesty, the wealth of Ming Dynasty is concentrated in the hands of these people.

Do you think they only save money?

When I searched those corrupt officials back then, the amount of gold that I confiscated was more than 30 taels, and I confiscated more than 10 taels of gold from Fu Wang's house.In addition, we captured Taiwan and Macau last year and this year, and obtained nearly 50 taels of gold from the Dutch and Portuguese, and these golds together amounted to more than [-] taels.

And in the past two years, I have had people exchange some gold through some channels, and now the treasury has at least 60 taels.

A few days ago, Sun Meng wrote a letter saying that he had obtained more than 70 taels of gold from Luzon, which will be shipped back to China in a few days.When this batch of gold is shipped back to China, our gold reserve can reach [-] taels. "

"70 taels of gold, that's 700 million taels of silver!" Zhu Youjian exclaimed.

"Hehe, in fact, Daming still has more than 2000 million taels of silver reserves. We issue banknotes based on these 2000 million taels of silver, so the 2000 million taels of silver cannot be used." Li Jing laughed.

"Brother Li, you are really capable. Our previous emperors of the Ming Dynasty have never accumulated so much money." Zhu Youjian sighed.

Li Jing smiled and shook his head, then sighed softly and said: "Your Majesty, in fact, the way of Emperor Taizu issuing Daming treasure banknotes was completely correct, but unfortunately Emperor Taizu didn't know that the issuance of treasure banknotes should match the silver in the state reserve Correspondingly, the Daming banknotes flooded and were not accepted by the people in the end. If the Taizu knew to reserve silver back then, the silver in our Daming treasury would have piled up into mountains by now."

"That's right! Emperor Taizu's talent is broad and general, but this is the only thing he really didn't do well." Zhu Youjian also sighed.

Li Jingjing nodded: "So, we must learn from the experience and lessons of our predecessors, and we cannot follow the wrong path of our predecessors."

Zhu Youjian sighed softly and said: "Brother Li, I finally understand why you can do so well. Just learn from the experience and lessons of the predecessors and don't follow the wrong path of the predecessors. This idea is similar to that of other officials. completely different.

What are those officials like?They only know that they adhere to the established methods of their ancestors and dare not violate them a little bit, but they don't know that many of the practices of their predecessors are wrong. If they continue to follow the path of their predecessors, it will naturally become more and more out of control. "

Li Jing smiled and said: "Your Majesty, I can understand this truth thanks to the teachings of Lord Jie Huan. In fact, many problems were discovered by Mr., and he taught me these things. As for me, the only advantage is that I am bold. , dare to do anything.”

"That's not courage, it's courage. You have the courage to challenge stereotypes and bad habits. If someone else knows the problem, they don't have the courage to do these things." Zhu Youjian shook his head again and again.

Li Jing smiled and waved his hand: "Let's not talk about this. Your Majesty, let the palace arrange a banquet tonight, and I will go back to the cabinet to deal with some matters."

"Aren't you going to the banquet at night? If you don't come, what shall I tell them?" Zhu Youjian said anxiously.

"You can say whatever you want. You are the emperor of Ming Dynasty. No one dares to say that what you say is wrong. Well, how about this? I will send people to the Academy of Sciences to invite those foreign scientists, as well as Tang Ruowang and others. .Let these people explain to De Bauer and others, it will be much easier for you." Li Jing said with a smile.

"Are you really not going to the banquet?" Zhu Youjian asked anxiously.

Li Jing waved his hand: "It's almost time to talk about business matters. I'll arrange for someone to talk to them about the details. As for the honor you gave them as the Emperor of Ming Dynasty, I won't participate in the banquet, lest they ask me about business matters."

After a pause, Li Jing continued: "If they bring up official business with you, you can talk to them according to the idea I just said. In addition, I think they will present you with a national gift before giving the banquet. No matter what you give, you will Accept it, and when their people return home, we will return the gift to their king according to the value of the gift they gave you."

"Okay." Zhu Youjian said.

Suddenly Zhu Youjian felt that something was wrong, and hurriedly asked: "It is said that they should present the national gift when they meet today, why would they only present the gift when they give the banquet in the evening?"

Li Jing smiled: "These Dutch people are still a little clever. In fact, they brought national gifts when they met just now. Did you see the box held by the two people standing next to De Bauer? If I guessed If it's not bad, it's a national gift.

And I suspect that it was given to you and me by the king of the Netherlands, but at that time the state gift could only be presented to the emperor, and De Bourr didn't know what to do for a while, so he didn't offer it.Do you know why I didn't leave the palace to see them off just now?I don't want to give them a chance to gift me. "

"Oh." Zhu Youjian nodded slightly.

"Your Majesty, I still say the same thing. You will always be the emperor of Ming Dynasty, and you are the symbol of Ming Dynasty. No one can change this. You must maintain your majesty from the bottom of your heart. Anything that damages the majesty of the Emperor will be punished." Absolutely not allowed to appear." Li Jing continued.

"Thank you, brother Li." Zhu Youjian said.

Li Jing waved his hands and said with a smile: "Your Majesty, the two of us are talking about public affairs. You are the emperor of Ming Dynasty, and I am a subject of Ming Dynasty. To maintain your dignity is to maintain the dignity of Ming Dynasty, and it is also to maintain the dignity of us as officials. In terms of private matters, We are in-laws, and I am your cousin-in-law, we are an out-and-out family. You said thank you to me, but you are out of touch. "

"Hehe, what Brother Li said is that we are a family internally, and we are even more family externally." Zhu Youjian laughed.

"That's the reason, so I'll return your thank you." Li Jing smiled.

After speaking, Li Jing stood up: "Your Majesty, I want to explain something to Fang Fang and Gu Bingyou, so I'm going back now."

Zhu Youjian nodded slightly, knowing that Li Jing wanted to explain the arms trade and commercial trade to the two of them.

After thinking for a while, Zhu Youjian stood up and said, "Brother Li, I won't say anything else. You have to pay attention to your health and don't work too hard. Daming can't do without you. I heard Xiaojiu sent people to Wudang Mountain I have invited a famous Taoist priest, and I want you to practice some skills of nourishing your health, I think you should find time to meet that Taoist priest."

Li Jing nodded slightly.

Xiaojiu sent people to Wudang Mountain to invite a Taoist priest Li Jing, and he knew about it, but Li Jing has been involved in many things in the past few months, so he has no time to meet the Taoist priest, let alone practice some energy-raising skills.

Patting Zhu Youjian's shoulder lightly, Li Jing said with a smile, "Okay, I'll meet that Taoist priest when the locust disaster is over."

(End of this chapter)