Guo Pu, Grand Master of Zhongji Palace and Minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, was on duty in the cabinet today. As soon as he entered the duty room, he said to Xiao Liangyou, the editor of the Hanlin Academy who had recently entered Zhiwen Yuan Pavilion: "Are you seeking truth today?"
Is it sparse? Bring it to me."
Xiao Liangyou was born in the same year as Gao Jingshi. After compiling the "Da Ming Huidian" together, he is now a good friend. Of course, he is aware of the teacher-student relationship between Guo Pu and Gao Jingshi. For Gao Jingshi's first visit after he came to Guangxi to patrol
He had already expected that Guo Pu would personally pay attention to it when he went there, so as soon as Guo Pu opened his mouth, he bowed slightly and said: "Yuanfu, the truth-seeking essay has been placed on your desk."
Guo Pu nodded with satisfaction, walked to the case and sat down, picked up the pragmatic essay and read it.
This essay is called "In order to relieve the people's poverty, please designate the Lianzhou Prefecture to be the governor of Guangxi". The title is of course very high-level, and the content is also very upright, but the general idea of his essay is very interesting, and the thoughts in it are almost
It is completely consistent with the policy that led him to become the "Sixth Number One Scholar".
That is to say, the key reason why Guangxi is in chaos is poverty. As he said in his policy theory: The biggest problem in the world today is poverty: poor officials will lead to corruption, poor people will lead to thieves, poor military will lead to trouble, and poor countries will be weak... The so-called poverty
Also, for the small people, their production is not enough for self-sufficiency, and their trade (trade) is not enough for their own use. Looking at the source of this, it is simply that production is not abundant and transactions are not smooth.
For this reason, if you want to prevent officials from being greedy, you must first increase their salaries; if you want to prevent the common people from stealing, you must first enrich their income; if you want to prevent soldiers from causing trouble, you must first pay them enough; if you want to prevent the country from being weak, you must first enrich its treasury.
In this essay, he also proposed: "The poverty of Guangxi is not due to the limited land power or the lack of manpower. In fact, the products of the land cannot be processed and sold."
So Gao pragmatically proposed a bunch of projects to help Guangxi "process and sell", and stated openly in the essay that Jinghua was willing to take the lead in establishing two major sugar manufacturing and shipbuilding factories in Guangxi, and vigorously cultivate the local tung cultivation and tung oil trade.
The only trouble is that Guangxi does not have an outlet to the sea. Even if these goods can be produced, they have to go through Lianzhou in Guangdong.
Gao Jingshi made it clear in his essay that for Jinghua and other businessmen in the future, there is no difference in whether they pay taxes to Guangxi or Guangdong, but "Guangdong will always be rich and Guangxi will always be poor, so the Western Province will rely on the Eastern Province for supplies for a long time.
If the people are self-reliant and have insufficient warehouses and warehouses, how can they know the etiquette and abide by their duties?"
All in all, he raised whether Lianzhou Prefecture can be included in Guangxi to the level of whether Guangxi Province can have long-term peace and stability.
Of course, related issues such as the supplies of the squadron were also mentioned in passing to support this.
As for the possible "disadvantages", Gao pragmatically mentioned the issue of preventing Japanese pirates, but he didn't talk much about it. The main meaning was hidden in one sentence: "Since the industry is prospering there and the local area has benefited, strict measures will be taken."
Be on guard.”
This sentence is quite interesting. It seems to be saying that Lianzhou is not taken seriously at the moment. Even though the Guangdong Navy is quite powerful, the Japanese pirates can come and go freely because there is no interest. In the future, since a series of industries have been established,
Guangxi has a stake in local interests. In order to protect these interests, it is of course impossible to turn a blind eye to the threat of Japanese pirates.
If Guo Pu were to evaluate it, it would be that the intention was high and the argument was upright. The entire essay was not only upright and awe-inspiring, but also very practical, deeply adhering to the spirit of practical learning.
Guo Pu looked carefully to see if there was anything that was not in compliance with the regulations, but he was overthinking it. Gao Pragmatic had just finished compiling the "Da Ming Hui Dian" and was very clear about some taboos and things that should be paid attention to. How could he make a mistake?
Mr. Guo Ge then gave a 16-word reply: "The officer's comments are clear, the statement is clear, and the consideration is appropriate. You can grant his request."
When Zhu Yijun heard that Gao Pangshi had submitted his first memorial after taking office, he thought that he had found some corrupt officials during his inspection and wanted to impeach corrupt officials. Unexpectedly, he took it over and saw that it was such a memorial. He couldn't help but feel a little bit in his heart.
Surprised.
Although the jurisdiction of the inspector-general has long been expanded to an almost limitless extent, generally speaking, it should still focus on supervision. Generally speaking, these local administrative affairs should be the responsibility of the governor.
Zhu Yijun was a little surprised at first, but after reading it carefully, he had to admit that Gao Pingshi's memorial was not ultra vires. Supervising the censor's work, regardless of whether it was to catch corrupt officials or investigate treason, in the final analysis was to protect the people.
Local peace. Although his main focus in this essay is finance, the ultimate goal is still to maintain local peace. It can even be said that it is for long-term peace and stability.
Zhu Yijun has always been very confident about Gao Pragmatic's ability. Although he vaguely felt that there might be some objections to this matter, he inherited a good habit from his father, Emperor Longqing: employing people without doubt. Now that the cabinet vote has also been approved
, he no longer thought about it and wrote Zhu Zhu: "Lianzhou used to belong to Guangdong because of the Japanese pirates. This was not the case in the previous Song Dynasty. However, now that the Japanese pirates are in a difficult situation, it is a long-term strategy for Lianzhou to return to Guangxi.
.If there is a secretary, we can discuss it clearly as soon as possible, make the division clear, and report it to me."
Changing the administrative ownership of a prefecture is not something that can be done casually. The six ministries, the Metropolitan Procuratorate, and even the Fifth Military Governor's Office and other yamen must make corresponding adjustments, related administrative procedures, yellow books and fish scale atlases, etc.
There are a lot of miscellaneous things, such as the transfer of archives and data.
Therefore, according to the imperial edict, all ministries are secretly trying to bring bad luck, and many officials privately seek advice from their respective cabinet ministers and backstage officials.
The Gao Dang side is naturally easy to talk about, and they will definitely join in singing praises when the new official Gao Pragmatic takes office, while the Xinxue group remains silent for the time being.
In fact, Shen Shixing is a little troubled now. According to his idea, there is no need to fight with Gao Dang over "such a trivial matter". Although Gao Pragmatic is young and low-ranking, he is a very special person. At present,
Under the circumstances, it is very uneconomical to fight with Gao Pragmatic over this matter.
The current situation is that Guo Pu obviously has the intention to retire, and although Zhang Siwei is not very old, his health is not good. In this case, why not wait until they retire before having a fight with Gao Dang?
However, the trouble is that Liu Yaojie is a typical Xinxue Party minister. With his achievements in quelling the Bazhai Rebellion, not to mention coming to Yanjing, he at least has a good chance of becoming the Minister of the Ministry of War in Nanjing, which is actually the most important minister in Nanjing.
Now that Gao pragmatism had struck Liu Yaojie in one blow, Shen Shixing had to consider Liu Yaojie's reaction.
So Shen Shixing decided to wait and see Liu Yaojie's reaction after receiving the news, and then decide whether to object or acquiesce.
Since no one immediately jumped out to speak out, the imperial edict would naturally begin to be implemented, and at the same time, the Gao family's related industries also began to move.
In Kaiping, the three major factories began to adjust their production capacity and urgently supplied a large amount of refined iron to the Jinghua Artillery Factory and Jinghua Musket Factory. The two ordnance factories used the excuse that the Jinghua security team needed to go south to Guangxi to protect the sugar refinery and shipyard that were about to be built, and began to work overtime for manufacturing.
Longqing Type II musket, Bingzi Type I light cannon (Tiger Crouching Cannon), Gengchen Type I heavy artillery (Red Coat Cannon Beijing version).
By the way, they also transferred a business to Wang Chonggu's grandson Wang Qian, which was to manufacture a large number of fine iron spearheads. The Wang family has also begun to engage in private military industry, but it is mainly in the cold weapons and armor business, so this time Jinghua
The sale of the iron spear head was directly handed over to the Wang family.
Wang Chonggu is Zhang Siwei's uncle. Logically speaking, Wang Qian and Gao Pragmatic are cousins, but judging from the customs of the Ming Dynasty, this "cousin" is a bit far away. However, both families are Gao Dang, and they are related. On weekdays,
Naturally, exchanges are indispensable, especially since the iron used by the Wang family is supplied by Jinghua, so the Wang family earns a processing fee from it.
At the same time, Jinghua's armed forces were also mobilized urgently. A total of 4,000 people were mobilized in batches from Jinghua Trading Company, Kaiping, Henan Weihui and other places to Laizhou, Shandong (the base of Jinghua Shipyard). Liu Xian and Gao Jue simultaneously mobilized and personally
Go to Laizhou for final training and prepare to be transferred to Guangxi by sea after all weapons and equipment are fully equipped.
Among them, Liu Xian is only responsible for the training. After the training, he will return to Kaiping to prepare the second batch of personnel, while Gao Jue will lead the team to Guangxi to prepare for combat.
Although the number of troops mobilized this time is only 4,000, there are more than 20,000 armed or quasi-armed personnel in Gyeonggi, Henan, Shanxi and Shaanxi (these two provinces are all people from the Jinghua trading company, mainly cavalry) (
As far as the Jinghua system (mine protection team, factory protection team) is concerned, it is probably less than one-fifth, and even including the subsequent second batch, it is only a quarter of the strength, but this is a "thousand-mile expedition"
”, there are many things to consider.
At the very least, the first thing they did after arriving in Guangxi was to adapt to the climate. This alone would take at least two or three months.
Because of these various things, Liu Xiancai, who had the most experience in fighting in the south, rushed to Laizhou in person to impart his experience.
In addition to preparations for force, the Jinghua Shipyard in Laizhou is busy arranging personnel. Many shipbuilders need to rush to Guangxi with the fleet. Although Guangzhou has recruited a lot of people, it is impossible to recruit them all at the moment. They still need people from the north.
support.
The recruitment of personnel for the sugar refinery is even more troublesome. This is a highly pragmatic and temporary decision. There is no talent reserve of this type in the north, so we have to recruit people from all over the country quickly. At the same time, we are recruiting people in Weihui and Xinzheng.
After recruiting so many people, there must be enough food. The local food production in Guangxi is unreliable. You must either go to Guangdong to buy it or buy it from Huguang. Although in theory Gao pragmatically has a better business network in Huguang,
It is more inconvenient to transport grain from Huguang to Guangxi - there are many mountainous areas and the waterway is counter-current, so this matter has to be put aside for the time being. Jinghua will only prepare grain for the road in the north, and Gao Mengnan will buy the rest near Guangzhou and transport it.
Qinzhou.
There are also other preparations made by Ling Ling Zong Zong, so there is no need to go into details one by one. In short, the whole Beijing has taken action for it. The effect of Gao Pragmatic's ten years of laying the foundation depends on this wave.
Everyone in Jinghua is very aware of this, so they can't help but be nervous - the master is personally watching whether they have done well this time, and their future will all depend on this move.
