The Most Powerful Man in the World

Seeing Zhu Houzhao's expression, Chu Yi smiled and said: "Your Majesty, crossing the ocean is by no means an easy task, you must make complete preparations, otherwise, if you send troops rashly, I'm afraid it will repeat the mistakes of Mengyuan. ."

Since Chu Yi has decided to lead the army to conquer Dongying in person, Zhu Houzhao can't change Chu Yi's decision, so he naturally wants to ensure that Chu Yi's expedition can go smoothly as much as possible.

I only heard Zhu Houzhao say to Chu Yi: "My companion, I have also read the history books, and it is recorded in the history books that Meng and Yuan sent a large army to attack Dongying twice, but they were defeated due to various reasons. Although there are human disasters, natural disasters cannot be ignored. ."

Meng and Yuan's two attacks on Dongying ended in failure. A considerable part of the reason was that the generals sent by Kublai Khan had too fierce internal struggles. It is still a North Korean general. It can be said that there is a deep rift between the generals of Meng and Yuan. In addition, they each have a desire to fight for merit, but they did not cooperate at all. In the end, the fighter plane was delayed. Finally, due to the misjudgment of the weather, the sudden typhoon seemed to be crushed to death. The camel's last straw is like that.

Zhu Houzhao was able to know this. Obviously, Zhu Houzhao also really read the records about Meng Yuan's attack on Dongying.

Compared with Zhu Houzhao's understanding of Mongolian Yuan's two conquests against Dongying, Chu Yi naturally collected various records long ago.

To be precise, the reason why Meng Yuan failed to attack Dongying was because of improper employment and natural disasters.

As the so-called lesson from the past, the teacher of the future, there is a precedent for Meng Yuan's failure to attack Dongying, even Chu Yi dare not be careless.

The island country on the other side of Dongying, although the land area is not large, has created a warlike ethnic group, but Chu Yi is not too worried.

Not to mention that the national power of the Ming Dynasty is getting stronger and stronger, and it is in a rising period. A large number of sea ships are under supervision. New ships are launched almost every day, and the treasury is full. Team is not a problem.

Wang Shouren pacified Jiangnan, but pursued Chu Yi's move of looting his family and exterminating his family, but all the local families that had connections with King Ning's remnants were all included in the ranks of rebels.

Although it is said that this move will increase the difficulty of pacifying the place, but once the families and dignitaries who are entrenched in the place are pacified, the whole place will be returned to the control of Daming, and an amazing wealth can be harvested by raiding their homes.

It was because of this that King Ning had even been taken to the capital for more than three months and was bestowed to death by the Son of Heaven, but Jiangnan was still not completely pacified.

If Chu Yi hadn't given such a strong order to Wang Shouren not to accept the surrender of these local dignitaries and gentry, I'm afraid that not long after King Ning was captured, the entire Jiangnan would be pacified.

However, the Jiangnan that Chu Yi wanted was a Jiangnan completely controlled by the imperial court, not a Jiangnan controlled by Jiangnan tycoons, maritime merchants, and dignitaries.

Wang Shouren pushed past city by city almost, although the damage to Jiangnan was a little bigger, but the effect was very obvious.

For those cities that were conquered by Wang Shouren, the Dongchang and Jinyi Guards who followed Wang Shouren's army had already carefully checked the details of the lords and dignitaries in the city. Once the city was broken, they would immediately arrest people according to the roster.

A large amount of wealth was transported from Jiangnan to the capital. It can be said that the filling of the treasury is almost rare in all dynasties. The officials of the Ministry of Household even had to build several new warehouses to store those silver taels.

As for the massive amount of silver grain that Chu Yi was going to build a big ship into, it was nothing compared to the income of the Ministry of Household.

After several waves of loot came down, even if part of the silver grains that entered the emperor's inner treasury were removed, the total silver in the entire household has now reached [-] million taels of silver. Two counts of various sums.

Chu Yi knew that it would be a few years before Daming would usher in the Little Ice Age, so under Chu Yi's suggestion, the entire courtroom began to build large-scale construction, repairing rivers and canals in various places, and even building water in places near rivers. car.

If it were changed to the past, Chu Yi's suggestions would definitely be criticized by many people as laboring the people and hurting the money, but now the imperial court has taken out grain silver to hire migrant workers, and at the same time a large number of prisoners of war are used to repair the river. Not hurt the people.

Although it is only a short period of less than half a year, the whole Daming has a faint sign of great prosperity. It is conceivable that once the water conservancy projects in various places are completed, even if there are various natural disasters, at least to a certain extent, the degree of harm of natural disasters can be reduced.

In the imperial study, Chu Yi looked at Zhu Houzhao and said, "Your Majesty, I implore Your Majesty to issue an decree to allow the minister to build a thousand more warships!"

Not long ago, Chu Yi wrote to Zhu Houzhao, imploring the imperial court to agree to build thousands of warships, costing millions of taels of silver, not counting the later maintenance of these ships.

The warships that Chu Yi was going to build were not commercial ships, but real warships. Streak silver.

At that time, when Chu Yi proposed to build so many warships, there was not much civil and military uproar in the court. The elders will not agree.

After all, once so many warships are built, the supporting logistics and maintenance will be the real beasts of gold. I am afraid that the Ministry of Housing will spend millions of taels in maintenance costs every year on the navy.

You must know that a few years ago, the total amount of tax and silver received by the Ministry of Household in Daming was only three or four million taels each year. dare not open.

Now that Chu Yi wants to add a thousand warships as soon as he opens his mouth, even Zhu Houzhao can't help but raise his brows, his face shows a bit of surprise, obviously taken aback by Chu Yi's generosity.

Taking a deep breath, Zhu Houzhao looked at Chu Yi and said, "My companion, are you sure you want to build a thousand more warships?"

Chu Yi nodded slightly, his eyes filled with calmness, and looked at Zhu Houzhao.

Others don't know it, but Chu Yi knows it all too well. If it wasn't for him, Daming would still be dreaming of a kingdom of heaven, but he didn't know what the national policy of banning the sea made Daming miss.

In addition to the Ming Dynasty, in the Western world, Portugal and Spain, the two major maritime powers, even signed a treaty more than ten or twenty years ago to try to divide the whole world into two.

The huge navies of Portugal and Spain swept across the sea, plundering the wealth of the entire world, and had already left behind the dying kingdom of heaven.

The era of world voyages has come, and missing this era is a great disaster for the entire eastern civilization.

Decades later, the Portuguese sea power that annexed Spain has reached its peak, with more than a thousand ships and nearly [-] main warships. The British Empire known as the Fallen Empire.

In Chu Yi's view, whether it is Portugal or the empire on which the sun never sets, the background is not a bit worse than that of the Ming Dynasty.

Portugal and the United Kingdom are typical small countries with only a few million or tens of millions of citizens. Even with all their strength, they can only scrape together hundreds of warships and hundreds of thousands of navies.

However, the Ming Empire, with its huge territory and massive population, not to mention the power of the whole country, even if the national power is poured on the navy, it is not comparable to some small countries.

Thousands of warships have been built in a few years. Even if the country is at its peak today, such powerful naval powers as Portugal and Spain across the sea are an incredible thing.

The development of maritime power by these countries for hundreds of years has only accumulated a little maritime power, and even at this time, the strength of several countries may not be able to make up thousands of ships.

However, as a great power in the East, Daming had enough confidence to build a huge maritime fleet with huge human, material and financial resources in just a few years.

If Portugal and Spain, these maritime powers, knew that the Ming Dynasty could build thousands of warships in just a few years, I would be astonished.

As a result, the shipbuilding silver taels allocated by the Ministry of Household just arrived not long ago, and now Chu Yi has proposed to build a thousand more ships, it is no wonder that Zhu Houzhao is full of astonishment.

"My friend, is there a lot of ships built? Even if this is the expedition against Dongying, there is no need to build a thousand more warships."

The scale of the fleet that Chu Yi was going to build was really too large, and Zhu Houzhao really didn't know what was the use of building so many warships.

Even if Zhu Houzhao, who had seen the model of the ship that Chu Yi was going to build, had never seen it, he could still imagine how destructive those huge warships were at sea.

From Zhu Houzhao's point of view, in a mere place in the East, not to mention thousands of warships, I am afraid that the dispatch of dozens or hundreds of ships is not something that the East can handle.

Chu Yi got up, walked to the side, stretched out his hand, and saw a huge map appear in front of him.

This is a rather crude map, but it can be clearly seen that this is a map of the world.

This map is centered on the Ming Dynasty, and the surrounding countries, especially those large and small at sea, are drawn with reference to the records left by Zheng He's voyages to the West. Arrival place.

And Chu Yi only slightly improved this map of the world.

Chu Yi still remembers the deep shock he brought to Zhu Houzhao when he dedicated this map to Zhu Houzhao.

Chu Yi didn't say anything, but just pointed to the vast ocean that occupies nearly [-]% of the entire map. Zhu Houzhao couldn't help showing a bit of fanaticism and excitement, took a deep breath and looked at Chu Yi and said, "As long as you have a great companion. If you can persuade the cabinet, the Chinese military, and what your partner asks, I will grant it!"

The next morning in the early morning, when Chu Yi proposed to build a thousand more ships on the morning of the morning, he never thought that the first person to stand up against it was not someone else, but Jiao Fang, the head of the cabinet.

It's not that Jiao Fang and Chu Yi are on opposite sides, but from Jiao Fang's point of view, Chu Yi's construction of a thousand ships would have shocked the world. Even so, everyone agreed because of Chu Yi's prestige.

However, it didn't take long before Chu Yi opened his mouth again, and he had to build a thousand more ships. Even Jiao Fang felt that Chu Yi was too crazy, and even tried to use force.

Almost all the civil servants and even some military generals opened their eyes wide and looked at Chu Yi with disbelief.

Yang Yiqing, the Duke of Jin, who was in charge of the Ministry of War, heard Chu Yi's words, and with a trembling of his hand, he almost tore off his beard, and looked at Chu Yi in astonishment.

Jiao Fang looked at Chu Yi with a worried look: "Your Highness King Wu, think twice, a thousand ships are enough to traverse the sea, even if Zheng He, the eunuch of the Three Treasures of the past, went to the Western Ocean, it was only a hundred ships..."

Chu Yi was not surprised by the opposition of officials such as Jiao Fang, and even he did not discuss with Jiao Fang in advance, because Chu Yi knew very well that even if he persuaded Jiao Fang, he might not be able to persuade the civil and military officials of the Manchu Dynasty.

Seeing that Chu Yi looked calm and was not affected by Jiao Fang's opposition at all, as the Minister of War, Yang Yiqing coughed lightly, looked at Chu Yi with a dignified expression and said slowly: "Your Highness, what Lord Shoufu said is not unreasonable. I, Daming, although the treasury is full now, there are many places in the world where silver is used, and a thousand ships is already the limit that the court can maintain. The navy has been dragged down!"

As the Minister of the Ministry of War, Yang Yiqing, as a newly promoted member of honor, naturally hopes that the strength of the military will be greatly increased, and the navy also belongs to the military, and will also be bound by the Ministry of War, but Yang Yiqing is by Chu Yi's great work. frightened.

A thousand ships is nothing, and it is not impossible to support it with Daming's national strength, but if you build another thousand ships, it is not that you can't build it, but there is no need for it at all.

There is no strong enemy in the Daming Sea at all. Since ancient times, the enemies of the Central Plains Dynasty have all come from the northern aliens. As for the sea, to be honest, no one has thought that one day, there will be strong enemies from the sea.

If it weren't for this, Daming wouldn't be tired of the navy. The old navy was already in ruins, and Chu Yi had to build another navy.

It can be said that in the whole country, almost no one regards overseas as a hidden danger for the future of Ming Dynasty, and it is not to blame for the civil and military affairs of the Manchu Dynasty, and even Yang Yiqing and other figures who are both civil and military, and who are generals and ministers are opposed to Chu Yi's proposal.

As Jiao Fang and Yang Yiqing opened their mouths to object, almost everyone expressed their opposition, and Chu Yi seemed to be isolated by everyone for a while.

Chu Yi slowly turned around and stood under Zhu Houzhao's imperial steps, his calm water-like eyes swept across the crowd of civil and military people present, only to hear Chu Yi say: "This king once said that the future enemy of Daming will be his own. Coming from overseas, overseas enemies have endless wealth, and only a powerful maritime force can seek overseas wealth, why don’t you believe in Chu once again!”

Everyone looked at Chu Yi, and for a while, the entire courtroom was silent.

Although it was said that Chu Yi was asking everyone to believe him once, everyone could hear Chu Yi's determination. It was obvious that Chu Yi had made up his mind. It would be difficult for them to stop him.

When everyone turned their attention to Zhu Houzhao, they found that Zhu Houzhao shook his head at them with a wry smile. Obviously, even the emperor couldn't persuade Chu Yi.

Everyone has long been surprised by this. If it was someone else, the emperor would make a decision, but Zhu Houzhao and Chu Yi were not ordinary monarchs and ministers at all, even if Zhu Houzhao had nothing to do with Chu Yi.

Jiao Fang looked at Chu Yi, sighed in her heart and said to Chu Yi: "If the chief executive insists on building more ships, it is not impossible, but the number needs to be reduced."

Yang Yiqing's eyes lit up when he heard the words. Since he can't stop Chu Yi from building another ship, he should try his best to persuade Chu Yi to reduce the number of ships.

He heard Yang Yiqing say to Chu Yi: "Building a thousand more ships is too much pressure for the country, why not add another [-] ships?"

Chu Yi raised his brows, pondered for a while, looked at Jiao Fang and Yang Yiqing and said, "If that's the case, then build another [-] ships!"

Hearing what Chu Yi said, Yang Yiqing, Jiao Fang and even the civil and military officials of the Manchu Dynasty could not help but feel relieved. Five hundred ships should be five hundred ships. It is quite rare to be able to make Chu Yi promise to cut in half. The emperor can't make Chu Yi change his mind!

[[-]-character chapter, ask for a monthly pass. 】

Four hundredth Chapter 17 Expansion of hundreds of thousands of troops

Although they still feel that the number of [-] ships is a bit too much, Chu Yi finally agreed to cut it by half. If they haggle again, if they make Chu Yi unhappy and decide at the time, they really have nothing to do. .

Yang Yiqing glanced at Jiao Fang and several elders, only to hear Jiao Fang salute Chu Yi: "I also ask the chief administrator to focus on the overall situation. It is not that I do not agree with the chief administrator's move to build a navy, but there must be one Limit, otherwise, I am afraid that the treasury will be difficult to support, so I will dissuade the chief general."

Hearing Jiao Fang's explanation, Chu Yi said with a smile: "You are all pillars of the country, and this king can understand your thoughts, but the great prosperity of the navy is the general trend of the future. Any blocker will be scolded by future generations after all!"

Chu Yi can say this, as long as he is not a fool, he can realize Chu Yi's determination to open the sea and vigorously develop the navy.

The early morning dispersed, but the cabinet elders stayed behind. After all, the construction of another [-] ships involves all aspects, and requires the concerted efforts of all ministries and yamen. Otherwise, building another [-] ships will not be enough. It's just an empty talk. If you want to put it into practice, it will naturally have to be coordinated by several officials.

Zhu Houzhao watched with a smile as Chu Yi was arguing with the cabinet elders, but he was a bystander.

Anyway, he is not good at these things, so it is better to wait until Chu Yi and several elders discuss a result, and then he will make a decision.

Gu Dayong stood beside Zhu Houzhao, poured tea for Zhu Houzhao, and said with a soft laugh: "The chief executive really knows astronomy and geography, even if it involves the way of Baigong, if it really talks about erudition, I am afraid that it is the civil and military affairs of the Manchu dynasty, and no one can surpass the chief steward!"

Zhu Houzhao nodded in agreement. Others didn't know, but he knew better than Chu Yi's talent. Otherwise, he would not have appointed Chu Yi as the prince's grandfather. Rarely seen.

Ordinary officials would have been stunned if they faced several patriarchs, but Chu Yi was the one who was arguing with several patriarchs, but was speechless when they refuted them.

I just heard Chu Yi say to Yang Yiqing: "Master Yang, this king wants to recruit another [-] navy!"

Since ships are to be built again, then these ships must be operated by someone, so the expansion of the navy is obviously a necessity.

It's just that Chu Yi had planned to expand the navy and recruit [-] navies. If you add the navy soldiers and soldiers that Cheng Xiangwu had previously recruited, this would be as many as [-] to [-].

Now that Chu Yi recruits another fifty thousand, the navy will be able to reach nearly two hundred thousand, which is definitely an astonishing number.

Although it is said that Daming claims to have millions of troops, all fools know that the so-called millions actually refers to the guard soldiers who are no different from ordinary farmers in various places.

There are millions of guardsmen in the world, I am afraid that it is not bad to add up to [-] soldiers who can fight.

What Daming was able to do was actually the more than [-] soldiers and horses in the Nine Frontiers, as well as nearly [-] horses such as the Jingying and Tengxiang Siwei Battalions.

Compared with the population of more than [-] million in Daming, according to the ratio of military and civilians in the feudal era, it is not a problem for Daming to support millions of troops. Of course, how long it can last is another matter, but if it is really a military force, it can be easily armed. Get up an army of two or three million.

At the beginning of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the Weisuo system did provide a steady stream of soldiers for the Ming Dynasty, two or three million, especially these soldiers were self-sufficient, which made the Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang complacent.