The emperor spent so much thought, first letting Li Mu and Shen Yi go south, and then step by step forcing Shen Yi, a fifth-rank official, to become a high official in the southeast. This was certainly partly due to the raging Japanese pirates.
However, from the beginning of the layout of the southeast, the emperor did not focus entirely on the southeast.
To be precise, it has been nearly four years since the young emperor took charge of Hongde in the sixth year. During these four years, the young emperor has been staring at the north, except for the first two years. , he spent part of his time consolidating his power, but most of the rest of the time, he never looked away.
The reason why Shen Yi was so reused by the emperor, to the extent that he moved around in two years, was largely because Mr. Shen accurately grasped the emperor's needs and thus obtained what he could at this stage from the emperor's "customer". Get almost all the resources.
Just because Shen Yi knew very well how he climbed to his current position, he also knew very well what the emperor wanted to do next.
To pacify the southeast is not only to pacify the southeast, but more importantly, to eliminate future troubles and at the same time, train an additional usable army for the emperor, or in other words, a usable navy.
The purpose of setting up a shipping company is even simpler.
Make money!
In fact, the current Chen State court is not particularly short of money.
This is mainly due to the strong business ability of Zhao Changping, the current head of the household department.
Zhao Changping has actually controlled the Ministry of Revenue since he became the Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs. Although he has not been the Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs in name for a long time, because the old Minister Liu Jizhang is old and unable to handle the affairs of the Ministry, Zhao Changping actually controls the Ministry of Household Affairs. It's been nearly ten years.
In the past ten years, he has done a very good job as the "general accountant" of the imperial court. In the past ten years, except for the four years of Hongde, when the expenditure of the household department exceeded a certain amount due to disasters everywhere, Zhao Changping was able to accurately control the expenses in other years. For housing expenses, you can even have a surplus of hundreds of thousands to millions of taels every year.
However, it only reaches the point of "breaking even".
Zhao Changping is not a god and cannot create something out of nothing.
Therefore, with the current income of the imperial court, it is not difficult to maintain its own operations, but it is not easy to fight a big war with the strength of the whole country like the former emperor did.
After all, when the late emperor ascended the throne, Emperor Xianzong left him a good fortune, but when the current emperor ascended the throne, the late emperor left him almost nothing.
In terms of "war" needs, the emperor was in urgent need of additional income.
Therefore, he is very interested in the shipping company.
To what extent do you care?
As the emperor, he would be willing to write a letter to Zhou Yishan, the governor of Zhejiang, so as to put a layer of tiger skin on Shen Yi, so that Shen Yi can do things easily in Zhejiang!
This is actually a very incredible thing.
After all, in this era, there is no spirit of pragmatism. The emperor is the son of heaven, and he rarely lowers his status to provide convenience for his subordinates.
In view of all the above signs, Shen Yi is already very clear about the plans of the court, or the emperor, in the next few years.
Next year, he will be able to complete the errands in the southeast.
At that time, if the Shipping Company operates well enough, it will bring a large amount of income to the court every year. This money will be the military expenditure for the emperor's Northern Expedition in the future!
And in the next two or three years, His Majesty the Emperor will not have any other thoughts!
He can only think of two words!
Northern Expedition! Northern Expedition!
After Shen Yi returned to Jiankang, if nothing else happened, he would help the young emperor improve some of the foundations needed for the Northern Expedition.
That's why he told Xue Wei.
The long term can be five years, and the short term can be three years.
This coastal defense force in the southeast will be of greater use.
…
Because Xue Wei was not in a very good mood, he sat in Shen Yi's carriage and kept his head down and said nothing most of the time.
But not long after, Shen Yi took him to the place where Sun Jin was hosting a banquet.
At the banquet, Shen Yi took Xue Wei to sit next to him and introduced him to three senior officials from the Zhejiang Provincial Government and several officials from the Wenzhou Prefecture.
In fact, for Xue Wei, what he needed to know more were the officials of Wenzhou Prefecture.
Because for a long time to come, those who will deal with him will most likely be these Wenzhou Prefecture officials.
After everyone drank a few glasses of wine, Zhou Futai's face turned a little red. He looked at Shen Yi and said with a smile: "This time our Zhejiang Shipping Company was able to open the market smoothly. In addition to the dedicated work of several father-in-laws in the palace, Young Mr. Shen can be said to have taken the greatest credit."
He picked up the wine glass and toasted Shen Yi with a glass of wine: "On behalf of the officials in Zhejiang, I would like to toast Mr. Shen."
It has to be said that the psychological quality of these old-timers in the officialdom is indeed excellent. Two days ago, Zhou Futai was scared out of his mind by Shen Yi. In just two days, he had completely recovered and seemed to be nothing. thing.
As the first constitution leader of Zhejiang, Zhou Futai stood up and toasted. Naturally, all the officials in Zhejiang could not embarrass their leaders, so they all stood up and raised their glasses to toast Shen Yi.
In response, Mr. Shen stood up, picked up the wine glass quite modestly, and after drinking it, he shook his head slightly and said: "The Shibo Department is arranged by His Majesty, and the specific arrangements are handled by people in the palace. At best, Shen, It’s just a bit of manpower, I really don’t dare to take credit.”
He raised a glass to Zhou Futai and said with a smile: "This city's shipping department was first established, and many things required the cooperation of the local government. It was all thanks to Zhongcheng's help that Zhejiang officials were able to work together to help the city's shipping department open the market."
He raised the wine glass with both hands and said with a smile: "I pay tribute to the Prime Minister."
At this point, the two people were complimenting each other and it was over.
This can be regarded as a tacit understanding between Master Shen and Zhou Futai, and it is also some of Zhou Futai's own whimsical ideas.
Because he felt that Shen Yi was always surrounded by internal guards who would report what they saw to the emperor's desk anytime and anywhere.
Therefore, he had a conversation with Shen Yi the night before and completed this conversation that was full of performance.
To put it more bluntly, I just want to establish a sense of presence with the emperor first, so that I can speak more easily when I go to Beijing to meet the emperor at the end of the year.
After the process was completed, there were no more disturbances at the banquet and it went on smoothly.
In the evening, Shen Yi held a banquet in Shenyuan to entertain these Zhejiang officials.
Shen Yuan's dinner was not over halfway yet, and Zhou Futai, who already smelled of alcohol, pulled Shen Yi's sleeve and walked aside.
Master Shen saw that he had something to say to him, so he took the governor of Zhejiang to his study, poured him a cup of strong tea to relieve hangover, and said with a smile: "What's wrong with Zhongcheng? You're in such a hurry. Find me?"
After Zhou Futai lowered his head and took a sip of tea, the smell of alcohol on his body immediately dissipated a lot. He was not drunk at all, and now he felt more sober.
Zhou Futai took a deep breath, looked up at Shen Yi, and said: "In the past two days, I have sent people to Lin'an to contact several merchants who often go to sea to do business. In two days, several large ships will go to sea from Yueqing. , went to Nanyang to sell silk."
Good guy…
Mr. Shen took a deep look at Zhou Futai.
This governor of Zhejiang is really a man of action!
In order to make Shibo's "performance" look better, he actually directly brought a few business deals to Shibo!
After Zhou Futai paused, he continued: "There should be many merchant ships coming from other state capitals to Yueqing to go out to sea."
He looked at Shen Yi, then burped: "Don't worry, Mr. Shen, with me here, your errand will not be ugly."
It has to be said that with such an old official helping out, this job is indeed much easier.
However, Zhou Yishan's doing this is not much different from sending money directly to Shibosi. It smells like "cheating" in a hurry for quick success.
However, it makes sense for him to use his influence in Zhejiang to let the Shipping Company start the "business" first.
Shen Yi added half a cup of tea to him and said with a smile: "If it is other merchant ships that call Haizhou Prefecture, there is no need to sail to Yueqing to go to sea. Just let the Shipping Department send someone over to sort out the accounts."
As he spoke, he looked at Zhou Yishan and said sincerely: "Zhongcheng has done his best for Shibosi, and your Majesty will definitely see it."
"Xiao Xianggong, you and I are running the same errand together, there is no need to talk about these empty words."
Zhou Futai lowered his head and took another sip of tea, then raised his head to look at Shen Yi, and said slowly: "Xiao Xianggong just needs to tell me how much tax money the Wenzhou Prefecture and City Shipping Company will have to collect by the end of the year to achieve initial results. The remaining Just leave the rest to me."
Mr. Shen couldn't help but "tsk" and looked at the little old man in front of him, feeling filled with emotion in his heart.
He had finally seen the energy of a feudal official.
This kind of energy was beyond his expectation!
"By the end of the year, if you have 200,000 tax dollars, it will be considered very good."
The five city shipping companies should ideally have a tax rate of 5 million to 10 million taels per year. Based on the calculation of each city shipping company having 1 million taels of silver per year, the Wenzhou city shipping company has a tax rate of 5 million to 10 million taels per year. In a month and a half, as long as it collected about 200,000 yuan, it would be able to fully meet the emperor's psychological expectations.
"Of course, the more of these things the better, but not too much."
Young Mr. Shen lowered his head, calculated it carefully, and then said: "If it exceeds 500,000, it's a bit unreal."
Zhou Futai stood up and cupped his hands towards Shen Yi: "I understand."
After saying this, he turned and left directly, walking out of Shen Yi's study.
Master Shen sent him all the way out of his study room. He saw that although the little old man was a little swaying, he was walking out quickly.
Obviously, five hundred thousand taels of silver is not a difficult thing for Mr. Futai.
Thinking of this, Mr. Shen narrowed his eyes slightly and sighed softly.
"I don't know if this old man needs to pay for it himself..."
"If not..."
Shen Yi sighed softly: "The frontier officials in these places are a bit too majestic..."