Chapter 537 If you want to be rich, build roads first!
"Your Majesty, do you need me to send someone to supervise this matter and find it as soon as possible before it snows in winter..."
Yang Shiqi suggested that autumn is already deep now, and winter will come in a few days. The poppies in the north may have been cultivated, but there may still be places where they are planted in the south.
If the search is intensified, many people should be found.
"Don't rush these things!"
Zhu Gaoying shook his head. If the local officials' methods of handling cases are normal, if the higher-ups request urgent matters, then most innocent people will inevitably be implicated!
"Now it's time to scare the snake away, and they can't find a place to plant it. But that's good. They won't dare to plant this kind of crop in the spring next year!"
"The most important thing now is to pay attention to farming, but don't disturb the local people's harvest in the coming year because of these things!"
Zhu Gaoying's goal can be regarded as achieved in disguise. Although he cannot entangle the Yan family's blocking members, as long as he can deter them and prevent them from planting poppies, it will be enough.
"Your Majesty, is this the end of the matter?"
"No, I want to be the best in the world. Anyone who grows poppies with less than three poppies will not be punished. If he grows more than three poppies but less than ten poppies, if he is discovered by others, he will be fined one tael of silver for each poppy poppy, and the reporter will get one-third of the fine.
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"For more than ten pills and under thirty pills, the fine has been long but terminated. These poppy people will be slapped with thirty pills and put in jail for a month!"
"If there are more than thirty pills and less than one hundred pills, you will be imprisoned for three to ten years!"
"Those who are in the past will be sent to the frontier, or beheaded in public display!"
If poppy cultivation forms a stable drug trade, the benefits it will bring will be very considerable for the farmers who grow it!
Therefore, even if you know there are risks, you will take the risk and terminate it, but what if the risks far outweigh the benefits? Who would take the risk?
The fine is one tael of silver for each poppy. If it is made into medicine and sold for one tael of silver, I am afraid that more than ten poppies will be consumed.
Even the income of the whistleblower is far higher than its own black value!
The money earned is small and the risk is huge. Who would take this risk?
Unless they are those who don’t care about their lives!
And now, apart from himself, Su Wu and Yang Shiqi, the only ones who know the effects of poppies are the senior members of the Yan family!
"As a result, I'm afraid the whole country will avoid things like poppies!"
After Su Wu heard this, he couldn't help but sigh that His Majesty's move was really cruel, and he directly cut off Poppy's way of survival in the Ming Dynasty!
"Will such harsh measures be counterproductive?"
"Maybe it will arouse the concerns of some corrupt officials in the local area?"
A poppy is just one tael of silver. If this is framed...
Su Wu felt something was wrong and the law was a bit too strict.
"It's not serious, you haven't seen his power!"
Zhu Gaoying knew very well how powerful the smoke would be in later generations. He could even corrupt a powerful country!
Therefore, no one can be too harsh on this type of things, especially since they are still in their infancy and have not developed widely, so it is particularly important to cut them off at the source!
"In addition, pharmacies and pharmacies can purchase small batches from the government, which costs about ten cents or one tael."
The official price is clear, so the profit from growing this thing is naturally gone.
"So, very good!"
Su Wu had seen the power of Xiaoyao Pill with his own eyes in western Sichuan. It could make a group of desperadoes desperately fight for it, even kneel down to beg for mercy, and kill each other, all just to fight for one pill, which would give them short-term happiness.
Xiaoyaowan!
Your Majesty should do this because he wants to completely prevent the occurrence of this kind of thing.
It has reached the point where I would rather kill a hundred people by mistake than let one go.
However, the local area may lack the means to distinguish poppies, and in the early stages, many unjust, false and wrong cases may be established.
"Then I will let the image of the printed poppy be announced and spread to every corner of the Ming Dynasty."
"Well, I also hope to teach the people to understand this kind of thing first, and promulgate this decree until it is officially implemented in the spring of next year!"
It is best that things like tobacco should never appear in public affairs.
"Also, to what extent are the roads that I asked the Ministry of Industry to build now?"
The wide bluestone road can increase the marching speed of the army by at least 50%. At the same time, it can also pave the way for the emergence of various cars in the future.
"In response to Your Majesty, the Ministry of Industry started construction a month ago, but the materials and manpower consumed to build this kind of road are really huge. Even if a large number of soldiers are used as laborers, it can only be built from the capital to Tianjin Port!"
Due to the appearance of Zhu Gaoyen, there was no sea ban in the Ming Dynasty at this time, and there were countless ships traveling on the sea.
Last year, the total amount of grain, grass, weapons and troops transported by sea even exceeded the total amount transported by the Yellow River, the Yangtze River, and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal!
This is quite an astonishing number!
If this continues, then submersible river transportation will gradually fade out of the stage of history, and real deep-sea freighters will become the mainstream in the Ming Dynasty from now on.
Zhu Gaoying was thinking about it, and he couldn't wait to drive these ships to Europe.
Aren't they still in the Middle Ages now? Just use iron guns and cannons to smash open their country gates!
However, neither the strength nor the economy allow it now, so we still need to be patient for a while.
"If half of the country's troops are mobilized, will it be possible to build this road to Liangzhou before next spring?"
In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, they fought for years and spent countless amounts of money and supplies on the army, and the number of the army reached a quite terrifying level.
"This, if there are enough materials, maybe it can be done before next spring!"
They did not use the troops from the capital to build this road from the capital to Tianjin Port, but only let the defenders of Tianjin Guard participate in the construction.
In just a short period of time, Beijing City and Tianjin Port have been connected.
If the whole country really wanted to build a bluestone road, the speed would have to be increased at least ten times, or even twenty times!
"good!"
Zhu Gaoyang looked happy, but this speed was still too slow, much worse than the asphalt roads of later generations.
However, asphalt is composed of heavy hydrocarbons and super-heavy hydrocarbons, and only very viscous foods will contain a large amount of asphalt!
Although Zhu Gaoying knows how to mine and refine, the existing technology can only refine some light crude oil at most. This kind of heavy crude oil cannot be extracted by current methods, at least after the first industrial revolution.
The production capacity and technology will do!
Phew, as expected, it is easier to build railways and trains!