"Supervising the country, Zeng Daowei, the cabinet scholar, died of illness last night!"
Just as Zhu Hengjia was preparing to go to court, Zhao Lixian, the eunuch who served as the Supervisor of Ceremonies, came up to report.
Zhu Hengjia dealt with various memorials every day and was unbearably tired! Really, really tired! Historically, Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang once handled 3,291 major events in eight days, an average of more than 400 per day. You can
Imagine how tiring it is to be a prisoner!
If you are tired, you will have to find a few more "secretaries".
So Zhu Hengjia ordered the establishment of twenty-four yamen (twelve supervisors, four divisions, and eight bureaus) in the inner court. Of course, they were all scaled down versions. The finances were tight and he could not support too many father-in-laws.
The focus was on establishing the Si Li Jian and the Yu Ma Jian. Among the twenty-four yamen, the Si Li Jian was responsible for internal and external memorials, and the Yu Ma Jian was responsible for the emperor's military symbols, which was the most important.
Zhu Hengjia appointed Ma Huanxi as the fourth-rank chief ceremonial officer and eunuch in charge of sealing, and He Liang as the fourth-rank chief ceremonial chief and eunuch Bingbi. One was in charge of sealing and the other was in charge of approving red. He also appointed Zhao Lixian and three others as the eunuch of the fourth-rank chief ceremonial officer.
A complete team of secretaries.
The Ming Dynasty implemented a voting system. The cabinet unified opinions on government affairs, handled them properly, and submitted them to the emperor for review and approval. When the emperor agreed, he issued a batch of batches. After Yongle, the emperors of the Ming Dynasty were very lazy and often took out a few batches of batches from memorials.
, and the rest were sent to the eunuchs in charge of rituals in batches. As a result, a strange situation emerged where the ministers were controlled by the eunuchs.
This situation did not exist with Zhu Hengxi. He was very diligent and insisted on correcting memorials personally, so the father-in-laws of the Supervisor of Ceremonies could only act as "secretaries" and could not exercise power.
The imperial horse supervisor was in charge of printing and supervising the eunuchs, and appointed Zhao Chengde and Fan Yi.
Zhu Hengjia had always disliked Zuo Chengfeng and Liu Rong because he felt that he had a sinister personality. However, for the sake of Concubine Shi, he still appointed him as the eunuch in charge of the chief eunuch, in charge of books, ceremonials, and curtains.
In order to warn the eunuchs not to exercise power, Zhu Hengjia had someone imitate the iron stele erected by the great ancestor Zhu Yuanzhang, which read, "Ministers are not allowed to interfere in political affairs, and offenders will be executed" and erected in the palace.
"Alas! The affairs of the state have been neglected, and we have lost an important minister of the imperial court!"
Zhu Hengjia ordered Zeng Daowei to be granted the posthumous title of Shangzhu Kingdom and sent people to Zeng Mansion to mourn him.
In the twenty-first year of Chongzhen's reign, there were many troubles and the king fell.
Li Zhenzong Li Weiyou of the Annan Li Dynasty died of illness, and his father, the Supreme Emperor Li Shenzong Li Weiqi, was restored to the throne.
The Nguyen Lord of Annan, Nguyen Phuc Lan, died of illness, and his son Nguyen Phuc Bin succeeded him as the fifth Ruan Lord.
King Thalong of the Toungoo Dynasty in Myanmar also came to the end of his life.
He called his two sons, Mangda and Mangbai, to him.
The Taungoo dynasty is the most powerful dynasty in Myanmar, and King Thalong is the wisest king in Myanmar. During his 19 years in power, there has been no major war in Myanmar, and he is committed to national unity and economic recovery.
This is really not easy for the people of Myanmar who are suffering from many disasters!
There are three main ethnic groups in Myanmar. After the demise of the Bagan dynasty, the Shan (Dai) people in the north established the Ava dynasty, the Mon people in the south established the Baigu dynasty, and the Bamar people in the east established the Toungoo Kingdom. In addition, there are Arakan people. , Mubang, Mengyang, Mengmi and other countries,
Constantly unifying, dividing, dividing, and unifying. The people of Myanmar have suffered deeply from the war.
Talon was very kind to the people, and treated the Burmese, Shan and Mon equally. Towards the Portuguese and the British, King Talon was friendly but also vigilant. During the civil war, both the Toungoo Dynasty and the Arakan Kingdom liked to hire Portuguese mercenaries , so the Portuguese have considerable influence in Myanmar.
During the 19 years of King Thalong's rule, he united all ethnic groups internally, developed the economy, and was good-neighborly and friendly externally. Myanmar was rich and powerful and never fought wars.
Looking at his two sons, King Long was very confused.
The eldest son, Mang Da, has a too weak personality, while the second son, Mang Bai, has a too violent personality. It would be great if the two sons' personalities could be balanced out!
He asked someone to take out two thin wooden sticks and gave one to each person.
"Children, break it."
With two snaps, the two princes easily broke the stick.
King Talong also asked someone to take out a bundle of thin wooden sticks and asked the two of them to break them.
"Children, do you understand what I mean?"
The two princes cried and swore: "Father, don't worry, we will live in harmony and friendship and carry forward the Toungoo Dynasty."
Seeing that his two sons were so sensible, King Long closed his eyes with relief.
He did not expect that thirteen years later, the two sons turned against each other, and the second son killed the eldest son and established himself as the king of Burma.
Li Dingguo, who was stationed in the car, found out about the suspicion of the Burmese master and suggested that Zhu Hengjia take advantage of this opportunity to regain Meng Gen.
Zhu Hengjia did not agree. As a time traveler, he knew that the new king of Toungoo, Mangda, was a mediocre ruler. After he came to power, Myanmar's national power declined rapidly.
Since he is a mediocre master, don’t be in a hurry to beat him. Wait until he has gradually destroyed the family’s fortune before you fight him.
??
"The ministers and others have discussed it. I just fought a few small battles and the treasury was empty. The Qing captives fought every year. Why are they not short of money?"
Zhu Hengjia convened Dongge University Scholars Guan Shouzhen, Sun Jinding, He Wuzuo, Su Guansheng, Zheng Feng, Wu Zhenyu, the left minister of the household department, and Cao Deng, the right minister, to hold a financial meeting.
When interrogating the country, Guan Shouzhen, who is also the Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, has to speak.
"In the supervision of the country, the Tartars are originally barbarians. They often loot and use them as military supplies, so they have money to fight the war."
Zhu Hengjia said: "That was before. Now that they have entered the border, they cannot rob everywhere like before. Where do the money and food come from?"
"The Tatars occupied the south of the Yangtze River, and the south of the Yangtze River became rich."
"The Tatars expropriated and plundered the people".
The ministers expressed their opinions one after another, and Zhu Hengjia felt that they all made sense, but none of them seemed to get to the point.
Zheng Feng spoke: "In fact, the Qing captives who supervise the country are also short of money. But they have the support of two merchants, so they can sustain it financially."
Zhu Hengjia was very curious: "Two businesses? Which two businesses?"
"One is the Shanxi merchants, commonly known as the Eight Imperial Merchants. They colluded with the Qing captives early. Before the Qing captives entered the customs, they would cooperate with the captives and resell ironware and grain. As soon as the Qing captives ran out of money, they would look for them to find a way. The other
One is the salt merchants from Lianghuai, who monopolized the price of salt in the Qing Dynasty and provided a large amount of salt tax to the Qing Dynasty. It was enough to support a large-scale war."
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Zhu Hengjia was filled with hatred. These profiteers only knew how to make money. They had no national integrity in their minds!
He took a look at Cao Dengbang, the right minister of the Ministry of Revenue. Because he handled the salt affairs well, Zhu Hengjia promoted Cao Dengbang from a doctor to the right minister of the Ministry of Revenue.
"Cao Qing, how much is the annual output of the Salt Class? How much salt tax can it collect?"
Cao was a little proud of being on the list, and his white beard almost started to float.
"In the supervision of the country, I boasted that if I followed my policy, I would be sure to collect a salt tax of 300,000 taels per year. In three years, it would be more than a million taels per year. Now, in just over a year, the salt tax has been collected at 600,000 taels.
Liang, it will definitely exceed one million taels next year. Last year, the salt production was 30 million jins (1 jin = 596.8 grams), and this year it is expected to reach 50 million jins."
"Oh, after listening to your advice, I replaced the exclusive trade diversion method (Gang Salt Law) with a general sale. Did it actually have such an effect?"
"Supervising the country is not all due to general sales. Since you recovered the four prefectures of Yunnan, Sichuan and Annan, the well salt in Yunnan and Sichuan has been controlled by us. I also opened salt fields in Hongji and Huaying in Annan, increasing the number of
Only by increasing the sea salt production in Lianzhou, Qiongzhou, and Guangdong can we achieve this result."
"Thank you for your hard work. But I still don't understand. You have sacrificed yourself so much that the annual salt tax is only 600,000 taels. How much can the Tatars' Lianghuai salt tax be paid in a year?"
"In the supervision of the country, Huai salt production has accounted for half of the country's total output since the Song Dynasty, with an annual output of 10 million jins. The annual salt tax is about 4 million taels. In addition, the Tatars also control the salt production in Shaanxi and other places.
and some well salt, and can also collect salt taxes of hundreds of thousands taels."
Zhu Hengjia was very surprised: "The Tatars' salt production is only three times ours, so why are their salt taxes seven times ours?"
Cao Dengbang sighed: "The Tatars colluded with the salt merchants to continuously increase the salt tax. The price of salt is getting higher and higher, and the tax money will naturally increase. But we, the Ming Dynasty, have never levied an additional salt tax since the founding of the Ming Dynasty.
There is naturally little silver. If you oversee the country and the people are suffering, you must not impose a salt tax to enrich the people."
Zhu Hengjia blushed. Originally, he had planned to impose a little more salt tax to solve the financial problem. After telling Cao Dengbang, he had to give up.
"Cao Qing, how much salt does the country need each year now? What is the total output? How much salt does the Tartars produce each year?"
"Jianguo, during the Wanli period, the country's registered population was more than 60 million, and the actual population exceeded 15 million. Assuming that each person eats one and a half kilograms of salt a year, 23,000 kilograms of salt are needed every year. All the salt in the country The total output of pool salt, well salt, and sea salt is about 210 million jins. Among them, the captive area produces about 160 million jins of salt, and the Ming Dynasty produces about 50 million jins of salt."
"Do the people have enough salt to eat?"
Cao Deng's chest was filled with excitement: "In the supervision of the country, since the implementation of a general sale, the enthusiasm of Zao households to produce salt has greatly increased. Not only is our salt enough to eat, but we can also save 20 million jins every year. On the contrary, there is a shortage of Tatar salt every year. Forty million catties. The current price of salt in the captive areas is much higher than ours. I suggest that the remaining salt be sold to the captive areas through private salt dealers. This can not only increase our fiscal revenue, but also attack the two Huaihe Rivers. Salt merchants, reduce the Tartar salt tax".
Silence, Zhu Hengjia was silent, shocked.
Who said the ancients were stupid and had no economic sense? Economic war! Isn’t this just economic war? It’s awesome!
This Cao Dengbang is really a talent! A great talent! He actually thought of using salt to strengthen himself and weaken the Tatars!
Suppressing his desire to hug Cao Dengbang and kiss him, Zhu Hengjia slowed down his tone.
"Cao Qing, I will leave this matter to you. The 20 million kilograms of salt saved every year will be sold to Lianghuai. We must lower the price of salt in Lianghuai and hit the Tatars hard. "Zi's salt tax".
