With the noise in his ears, Zhu Cunqu squinted his eyes and looked at the rather embarrassed middle-aged man in front of him.
He was wearing a slightly flat cotton coat. Although it was washed clean, its whitish color highlighted the tightness of his wallet.
The beard on his face was a bit messy and the dark bags under his eyes were deep, making him look extremely haggard.
It was obvious that he had faced a situation concerning his survival.
Zhu Cunqu looked down at himself again.
Wearing a mink fur coat, silver deerskin boots, a splendid jade belt around his waist, and a white paper fan with a jade pendant in his hand, he looked like a noble man at first glance.
"What?" Zhu Cunqu chuckled and said, "Am I just like a playboy?"
"You misunderstood." The man's face turned red instantly, and then he stammered.
It turned out that his real name was Zhou Zude, and he often traveled between Beijing, Liaodong and Heilongjiang, and was engaged in maritime trade.
But the sea was rough and dangerous. He originally had two ships, but now one capsized and the remaining one was dilapidated and in urgent need of extensive repairs.
Heilongjiang Province is vigorously developing the whaling industry, and there is no shortage of supporting ship repair yards, but it is impossible without money.
He was already in debt due to the loss of goods, and now he was begging for help everywhere because he had no money to repair the ship.
As long as he can repair the ship and recruit some sailors, he can make a comeback and become a man of the hour again.
It's a pity that people want to steal his ship but don't want to finance it.
He had no choice but to find a few jealous enemies and sell half of his shares in the boat while the whale whale meeting was busy.
As long as you pay half of the money, you can get a complete ship and a caravan that can operate normally. It is a big deal.
Unfortunately, Zhu Cunqu worked in the yamen for several months and saw many tricks of the yamen's subordinates. During the lawsuits over his promotion and appointment, he had a deep understanding of the cunning of businessmen.
"I'll take half of the money, and from now on I'll hand over the ship to you to run it. All I have to do is wait for the dividends?"
"That's right."
"Do you think I'm a fool?"
Zhu Cunqu was speechless: "The manpower is yours, the ship is yours, and you do the business. If you can't keep everything after one trip, I will have to pay for it!"
"If you have a rich purse and can start doing business again, you will leave me a broken ship. I can't sell it, can I?"
This is commonly known as borrowing a chicken to lay an egg.
In the end, let alone making no money, Zhou Zude might make money and take back half of the remaining shares, no profit or loss.
Zhou Zude looked at the young master seriously and was greatly surprised.
It seems that he is only in his 20s, but he is so shrewd, which is really rare.
He smiled awkwardly and prepared to fool another big head.
However, Zhu Cunqu still stopped him: "How much does it cost to repair a boat?"
"A major repair costs about two hundred yuan."
"My boat is made of thousands of materials. It cost 800 yuan when I bought it. Now the market price has doubled."
Zhou Zude said hurriedly.
"Buy a few more ships and form a fleet."
Zhu Cunqu took him to a restaurant on the dock and had a fish feast.
In spring, all things multiply. In the coastal city of Heilongjiang, there are all kinds of fish, which can be cooked, steamed and fried, which will make people knowledgeable.
Zhu Cunqu was not willing to eat fish at first, but as soon as he tasted it, he felt it tasted good.
Zhou Zude explained with a busy smile: "In the mainland, the fishy smell requires onion and ginger to get rid of, and it also costs oil. However, in Heilongjiang, due to the prevalence of the whaling industry, whale oil and fish oil are cheap and can be used by ordinary people."
.”
"In this way, all kinds of fish will be delicious."
"Not bad." Zhu Cuququ sighed: "Heilongjiang is rich in products. If it weren't a bit cold, it would be a really good place to live."
"Hey, sir, did you just say you wanted to form a fleet?"
Zhou Zude licked his face and smiled.
"That's right." Zhu Cunqu said casually, "What's the point of a ship doing it?"
"If you want to do it, make at least five ships."
When Zhou Zude heard this, he looked overjoyed and his face turned red.
"It's not safe at sea. If you do offshore business first, it's not only safe, but also safe."
Zhu Cunqu ordered.
Hearing this, Zhou Zude smiled bitterly and said: "I'm afraid you don't know that the offshore business is basically controlled by the people in the General's Mansion, so there are no leftovers left."
"I heard that Nurgan City continues to expand. When the time comes, food and other materials will need to be transported from Heilongjiang north. Isn't this a good deal?"
"You?" Zhou Zude's face was full of shock. He looked at the confident look of the young man in front of him and didn't know what to say for a moment.
At first glance, it is a big background.
"I will go to Nurgan City and serve as the governor of the town. You have made a deal with me."
Zhu Cunqu said calmly: "In addition, Nurgan City will be renamed Arctic City."
"Also, I heard that at the entrance of the Heilongjiang River, when spring comes, those baby fish will swim upstream and crowd the Heilongjiang River, and they can even cross the river. Is this true?"
"Of course it's true."
Zhou Zude said: "However, these fish can only be bought and sold in Heilongjiang. There are only tens of thousands of people in total, so they can't be sold for much money."
"However, I heard that on Sakhalin Island across the sea, there are hundreds of thousands of seals everywhere. If the governor can conquer this place, he can make tens of thousands of dollars every year just by selling their skins."
After hearing this, Zhu Cunqu immediately became excited.
Sure enough, the Northeast is full of wealth.
Seeing his rise, Zhou Zude added fuel to the fire: "Do you know why the General's Office has always wanted to build Nuergan City?"
"Isn't it for the fur?" Zhu Cunqu narrowed his eyes.
"Hey, fur is not worth gold."
Zhou Zude said seductively: "It is rumored that there is alluvial gold in Heilongjiang, and you can sift out gold by just panning for it. Many people also rumored that there are many gold mines there."
"If you pick it casually, it's a big deal."
"Otherwise, why would the General's Mansion go all the way? That's nearly two thousand miles!"
Zhu Cunqu's heart sank.
Bai Wang didn't explain this matter to himself. It's possible that he didn't know, and it's more likely that he imagined that he was cheating.
After all, I am here to get gold plating.
I wonder if the court knew about it?
With this in mind, he continued towards Arctic City.
It was a smooth journey of two thousand miles and we arrived in seven or eight days.
At this time, there were no more than a hundred households in Arctic City, and most of them were military dependents who were stationed there. There were only a few merchants, mostly for the purpose of purchasing furs.
He gathered his thoughts and came to the mouth of Heilongjiang River.
I didn't see the rumored return of the salmon, but I saw the turbulent Heilongjiang City.
Compared with the Yellow River and the Yangtze River, the Heilongjiang River was extremely wide at this time. For thousands of years, no one had controlled it, allowing it to do as it pleased, leaving countless islets and deltas in the middle of the lake.
A large number of flying birds came to rest, tens of thousands of them, covering the sky and the sun.
Near those tributaries, one could even see many jackals, tigers and leopards, which made a group of guards extremely vigilant.
No matter how you say it, this is a wasteland rich in products.
“There’s still a long way to go!”
Zhu Cunqu couldn't help but sigh.
…
At this time, as the Ming Emperor, Zhu Yixi was still preparing for the Northern Expedition in an orderly manner.
Tens of thousands of troops made the Northern Expedition and traveled thousands of miles. In Chinese history, this was only matched by Li Guangli's westward expedition to Dawan.
They have supplies from a number of small countries in the Western Regions, but as Ming Dynasty heads north, it faces thousands of miles of uninhabited desert grassland.
At the same time, the Manchu Qing Dynasty was a country that combined slavery and feudalism, and its strength was extremely exaggerated.
It can be said that the only one in Asia that can rival it is the Ming Dynasty.
The minister stationed in Russia even stated clearly that the Russian Czar was so beaten by the Manchus that he almost gave up Siberia.
Zhu Yixi could foresee the difficulties of this trip.
Therefore, preparations must be made two or three years in advance. Don't be too hasty, otherwise it will be easy to make mistakes.
In the huge Ming Dynasty, there were only about 100,000 cavalrymen, and they were basically distributed among the frontier armies because their raising costs were low.
The 20,000 elite cavalry maintained in the Beijing camp are almost equivalent to a 100,000-strong army. The horses are better fed than people, and even better than ordinary officers.
Therefore, slowly expanding and training the cavalry and exploring the path direction have become the top priority of the army.
At the same time, the supply of military rations is moving northward little by little like ants moving.
The cost is extremely high.
According to estimates from the Ministry of Household Affairs, it would take four shi of grain to reach Mobei from Beijing.
To put it simply, if five shi of grain were transported to Mobei, only one shi would be left.
This is because camels eat a variety of foods and are not picky eaters and are strong. Otherwise, ordinary mules and horses would definitely consume more.
So many people went to the memorial to flatter him, saying that the emperor had the foresight to breed camels in advance, so that they could become a weapon for military supplies.
In fact, who could have known that this ant moving-style transportation consumes half a million yuan every month.
If the decisive battle was held in the 20th year of Shaowu, that is, in the spring of next year, then the court would have lost at least tens of millions of silver coins.
And don’t forget, there are losses in fighting.
With the loss of horses, the consumption of food and supplies, and the large amount of rewards, this war would not be completed without twenty to thirty million silver coins.
I hope that the so-called Fengjing Mansion in Beihai will not be able to return to its roots in a hundred years.
But no one dared to say this at all.
The emperor has been in power for twenty years and has great power. The chief minister of the cabinet has become a yes-man. He cannot raise any objections at all. He can only find and fill in the gaps and do his best.
Zhu Yixi didn't take it seriously. The war had to be done as soon as possible. The higher the initial cost, the lower the cost.
Once it is delayed to future generations, the cost will increase exponentially.
In March, the capital is as lively as ever.
The Shaowu 19th General Examination will be held in April, which will be a huge event for the entire Ming Dynasty and many dependent countries.
Because this year, the imperial court clearly proposed to allow Jinshi from various countries to participate in the examination.
In other words, the Jinshi of a subordinate country is equivalent to the Juren of the Ming Dynasty, and has the qualifications to participate in the examination.
This is far more convenient and faster than taking the Imperial Examination before.
North Korea, Qin, and Kang had a total of two to three hundred people, which was unimaginable in the past.
At the same time, due to the inclusion of Luzon, Ryukyu, Mobei, Northeast China and other places in recent years, the number of scholars has continued to increase.
In order to stabilize the country and appease the scholars, the imperial court decided to expand the number of Jinshi from 300 to 400.
As usual, admission will be based on the previous rankings of North, Central and South, and the number of places will be increased respectively.
However, the imperial court took this opportunity to cancel the requirement of separate recruitment and instead re-stipulated the rules for payment of grain.
That is, each province is divided into three levels according to its tax level, and recruitment quotas are awarded respectively.
Nowadays, the imperial court's taxes are divided into three levels: poor provinces pay one cent, middle provinces two cents, and rich provinces three cents.
One cent of silver is ten cents.
In agriculture, the corvee is light and the tax is light, but the collection of indirect taxes, commercial taxes, effectively makes up for its losses.
In the tax regulations, poor and border provinces such as Anxi and Guizhou receive one point; Henan and Hebei, which are neither high nor low, receive two points; and wealthy places such as Anhui, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang receive three points.
Regardless of whether the land is fat or thin, regardless of prefecture or county, taxes will be divided according to provinces.
The more complex the taxation becomes, the more local governments can take advantage of it.
There are 400 places for the three categories of provinces, of which 80 are for poor provinces, 120 for middle provinces, and 200 for rich provinces.
On the surface it seems biased, but in fact it is fair in a certain sense.
Among the richest provinces in the country, only eight provinces, Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Hubei, Hunan, Shandong and Guangdong, have a population of more than 100 million.
In other words, it accounts for more than half of the total population of the Ming Dynasty, and it is worthy of its name to claim half of the quota.
The ten provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, Anxi, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Gansu, Ningxia, Suiyuan and Chahar have a total population of less than 30 million, accounting for 80 people, which is already considered preferential treatment.
This completely highlights the rules of the court: the one who has more money and food is the uncle.
Because it is a poor province, its population is also small.
Low taxes also prove that the land is poor and naturally there are fewer people to feed.
For example, the three provinces of Guangxi, Yunnan, and Guizhou have a combined population of less than 20 million, while Jiangsu alone has a population of over 20 million.
In the past, poor places like Gansu, Ningxia, and Anxi had to compete with places like Shandong, Hebei, and Shanxi for places in the Northern Volume, and basically could only be reduced to foils.
Especially in Gansu and Yunnan, there has never been a number one scholar in history, and the number of Jinshi scholars is pitiful, which is a pity.
Nowadays, rookies are pecking each other, and everyone has a chance, which is considered fair.
Of course, what constitutes a scholar belonging to the country was also divided into one province.
As soon as the edict on the rule of thirds came out, the whole city was shocked.
I don’t know how many people are happy and regretful about this reorganization of interests.
For example, in Shandong, he originally belonged to Beijuan, and his literary style was one of the best in the north. He was basically in the lead, and his life was very stable. Now he has to compete with Jiangsu, Jiangxi, and Anhui, which is simply fatal.
Some scholars made noises, but they were quickly suppressed.
Divided according to taxes, proposed by the emperor, approved and formulated by the cabinet, who dares to be arrogant?
Beijing, Shandong Guild Hall.
It was time for the examination, and the Shandong Guild Hall was full of people who came to take the exam. It was so overcrowded that the Guild Hall had to rent several nearby houses to accommodate them.
At this time, the head of the hall invited Zhao Mengshu, the right servant of the Ministry of Personnel, who was born in Jinan Prefecture, to come to the banquet.
Although he knew what was going on, Zhao Mengshu had no choice but to attend.
The entire Shandong Guild Hall has sponsored countless people, and the relationship is extremely huge. Who dares to offend his own countrymen and lose his reputation?
"Sir, how unfair is it to me, a scholar from Shandong, to be divided into three parts?"
As soon as the head of the hall took his seat, he immediately began to pour out his bitter thoughts, which can be said to be endless.