As a well-known upright official in Yunei and the real talker of the current cabinet, Yan Song's residence in Beijing seemed quite shabby.
"Your Excellency, please come back. There will be no visitors today." Menzi said with a smile.
Zhao Zhenji was furious and suddenly shouted inside: "Yan Weizhong, you are in vain to be the second assistant of the Ming Dynasty, and you are in vain to be the disciple of the Taishi! Haven't you read the Taishi's "Economics"? The Taishi once said that merchants are like tigers.
, lying in a cage. When I was the magistrate of Ningbo, I saw the benefits of merchants and the harm of merchants. Only by saving the benefits and eliminating the harm can the world be stable. Now, if you let the tiger out of the cage, you will be a sinner for the ages.
That’s it!”
The disciple's expression changed and he said, "Your Excellency, be careful what you say, these words are already disobedient to the ministers!"
"What am I afraid of? The worst case scenario is that I will resign," Zhao Zhenji said angrily, "It has only been five years since the Grand Master left the country, and the Ming Dynasty is already filthy. I am ashamed to be complicit in this filth!"
One of the four talented men in Shu, Zhao Zhenji, the censor of Youqiandu, actually resigned from his post at Shu. The emperor did not agree, so he did not bother to go to Shu again, so he just left the capital and took an iron sword on his back to travel to the sea.
Zhao Zhenji was not short of money. He came from a wealthy family in Neijiang, Sichuan, and his ancestor was Zhao Xiong, the prime minister of the Southern Song Dynasty.
This person came into contact with Yangming's Xinxue at the age of fifteen and wanted to go out to Sichuan to worship Wang Yangming as his teacher. However, he was tied up at home by his parents and was not allowed to run around. At the age of nineteen, he suddenly ran to a temple for meditation.
In addition to studying hard, he came into contact with physics and started doing physics experiments in the temple.
Two years later, my parents held me by the ears to take the exam, and I passed the fourth place in the Sichuan Provincial Examination. I was the leader of Yi Jingkui in that session.
Then his mother died of illness, and Zhao Zhenji stayed at home for three years while studying physics and mathematics. After the period of mourning, he went to a temple for meditation. At the age of 28, he was forced by his father to go to Beijing to take the exam, and won the first place in the second-level Jinshi.
He was also selected as a Shujishi by the museum.
When Zhao Zhenji was sent to other places and worked his way up to the prefecture, he read Wang Yuan's economic theory, combined with his own experience as a local official, and wrote a book "Economic Brief", focusing on the need to strictly prevent the erosion of capital in the officialdom.
Nowadays, Zhao Zhenji has been promoted to the position of censor of Youqiandu. He can be said to be young and promising, with an immeasurable future.
The reason why Zhao Zhenji was so angry that he resigned from office was because the imperial court reformed the municipal shipping department system. Every time maritime merchants changed their import and export licenses, they no longer needed to transport sufficient grain back to the Ming Dynasty. In addition, in order to collect more tariffs, the imperial court moved cotton and other industries to
The export tax on products is increased by 15%, which will inevitably lead to a reduction in cotton export profits, allowing more cotton cloth to flow to inland provinces at low prices, further damaging the small farmer economy in inland areas.
Zhao Zhenji strongly objected at the court meeting, and then wrote several memorials, but received no response, so he simply resigned!
In Zhao Zhenji's view, since the first assistant Luo Qinshun took office and the official minister He Tang died of illness, the new cabinet and the six ministries are all idiots. As long as you carefully read the few books left by Wang Yuan, you can fully understand Wang Yuan's governance
Thoughts, but those bastards were all confused, and even the once sensible Yan Song became confused.
Not really confused, sometimes just pretending to be confused.
The reason why the maritime trade open-to-market system was abolished was because it was difficult to implement it. As Wang Yuan went overseas, the supervision of the Municipal Shipping Department was further relaxed. Even if they met the iron-fisted censor, they only strictly investigated the corruption of the Municipal Shipping Department and were too lazy to regulate the maritime trade.
Whether to transport grain back to the Ming Dynasty in exchange for a license? Huguang and Jiangxi rice merchants worked together with officials. Maritime merchants did not want to be so troublesome, and the court could save time on supervision. A three-pronged approach canceled the policy of opening up China for maritime merchants.
If this is done, the price of rice along the coast will inevitably rise sharply this year, and I don’t know how many people in Shengdou will be harmed!
As for increasing the export tax on cotton cloth, it was purely done by officials. It was just to increase customs tax revenue, and at the same time, it could also generate more gray income. From this point of view, it is actually something to be thankful for, because it shows that merchants cannot influence the court.
In today's Ming Dynasty, officials still have the final say.
After Zhao Zhenji left the Ming Dynasty, he first went to North Korea.
He found that North Korea was in a completely abnormal state.
First of all, in academic circles, Wang Yuan's physics was castrated, and a mixture of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism, Yangming's philosophy of mind, and physics prevailed.
Secondly, there is fashion. The entire middle and upper class of North Korea are all extravagant and enjoy themselves, blindly pursuing all the new things of the Ming Dynasty.
Next came the commodities. The industrial and commercial products of the Ming Dynasty flooded North Korea. Not to mention high-end goods such as cotton, even linen was mostly trafficked from the Ming Dynasty. Only farmers wore linen spun by themselves.
Iron weapons, which were banned from export by the imperial court, can be seen everywhere in North Korea. The private soldiers of the North Korean nobles actually used Ming Dynasty flintlock muskets, but the soldiers of the North Korean king still used spears!
In addition, hungry people were everywhere in North Korea, and countless landless farmers were sent to mine, and the minerals obtained were sold to Ming Dynasty merchants.
The mines could not accommodate so many hungry people, so a large number of Korean people went to sea to make a living, and more than half of them went to Yinzhou. Because Nanyang disliked them for not knowing Chinese, but Yinzhou did not care that so many Koreans were better naturalized than the natives.
, compared with indigenous women, Yinzhou Han people are also more willing to marry Korean women as wives.
As a result, the human trade was born. Some powerful locals in North Korea specialized in selling Korean women to Yinzhou.
Zhao Zhenji thought that North Korea was already miserable, but when he came to Japan, he found that the North Korean people were at least living a decent life.
Japan is like hell!
Although Japan has all the symptoms of Korea, at least there is no war in Korea.
The Ouchi clan, which was most likely to unify Japan, was divided into eight after the assassination of Ouchi Yoshitaka. These eight small lords were controlled by the Ming Dynasty maritime merchants and the Toyo Navy respectively. They exchanged minerals, food and women for guns and guns, and each other
Attack each other.
The Oriental navy and the Ming maritime merchants have gradually figured out a way to play.
After Ouchi Yoshitaka was assassinated, Shimazu Takahisa was also assassinated, and the Shimazu family was divided into three, controlled by different Ming forces.
This model has spread from the Shikoku and Kinki regions of Japan to Kanto and Tohoku.
Even the vassal states that were not at war were deliberately provoked by Ming merchants, and the whole of Japan was plunged into endless wars. Once someone was found to be powerful, they would either be besieged or assassinated. Japan had become the merchants of the Ming Dynasty and Nanyang.
The Navy's playground.
While a large number of people at the bottom were starving to death, Japan's upper class were also competing for enjoyment. Ming luxury goods were always sought after.
In order to survive, a large number of Japanese women became prostitutes. Low-level samurai and ronin were mostly hired as thugs by maritime merchants because they were strong in combat and obedient, and their wages could be very low.
The trip to North Korea and Japan made Zhao Zhenji very confused. It was not that he was a saint, but that there were some things that really went against human nature.
Leave Japan and head to Ryukyu.
Zhao Zhenji was completely speechless. The Japanese Navy not only caused trouble in Japan, but also quietly destroyed the Ryukyu Kingdom.
Zhu Yuanzhang listed a bunch of countries that would not be conquered in "The Ancestral Instructions of the Emperor Ming Dynasty". Ryukyu ranked second only to North Korea and Japan. The countries that would not be conquered are as follows: Korea, Japan, Ryukyu and Little Ryukyu, Annan, Chenla, Siam, Zhan
City, Sumatra, Western, Java...
Well, Zhu Di took the lead in violating the ancestral precepts and turned Annan into Jiaozhi Province.
The Champa Kingdom was also destroyed by the Nanyang Navy long ago, without the permission of the imperial court, and has now been merged into the Chief Secretary of Cochin. This move by the Dongyang Navy is just following the example of the Nanyang Navy.
Zhao Zhenji secretly wrote a letter to an old friend, and a few months later the whole court knew about it.
The admiral of the Toyo Navy was replaced, but everything else remained as usual. The Ming Dynasty also established a county in Ryukyu and sent a civil servant to be the county magistrate.
Depart Ryukyu and head to Luzon.
Zhao Zhenji was surprised to find that the Han people in Luzon lived a prosperous life, with more than 100 acres of land per capita. Even children, regardless of gender, could be allocated 50 acres of land after registering with the government as long as they lived to the age of fifteen without dying.
Another 50 acres of land can be allocated.
Moreover, the land tax in Luzon was very low, only half that of the Ming Dynasty. To the Han people, it was like a paradise on earth. Apart from military service, the Han people did not have to perform any corvee.
However, Luzon imposes heavy taxes on merchants, especially on spices and other goods!
While visiting the countryside outside Tortoiseshell City, Zhao Zhenji discovered a large group of children carrying schoolbags.
He asked an old farmer: "Is education in Luzon so prosperous? In this small village, there are dozens of children studying, and even the girls are carrying schoolbags."
The old farmer smiled and said: "The king's law is very strict. Regardless of boys or girls, as long as they are over seven years old, they must be sent to school to study for at least three years. The king has said that whose children do not study, they will not grow up until they reach adulthood.
After that, the land cannot be divided. If you are fifteen, you will be given 50 acres, and if you are twenty, you will be given another 50 acres. That’s 100 acres of land. If you don’t study, you won’t get any points. That’s a huge loss.”
Zhao Zhenji asked: "There are teachers in every village and town?"
The old farmer smiled and said: "There are all of them. If there are no teachers, the government will not allow the village to be built. The teacher is the village chief, and the village chief is the teacher."
"How can there be so many scholars as teachers?" Zhao Zhenji asked.
The old farmer said: "When a scholar was born in the Ming Dynasty, he was given money when he got on the ship, and when he got off the ship, he was given land. When he settled down, he became a teacher, and when he built a village, he became a village chief."
Zhao Zhenji was completely speechless.
Wang Ce's immigration methods were adjusted again, that is, a scholar was asked to lead a group of immigrants to carry out development. The scholar had dual identities of teacher and village chief, and even village-level administrative officials.
This kind of approach will inevitably form many prominent families a hundred years later, controlling local administrative justice and discourse power, but it was very powerful during the pioneering period.
Moreover, Wang Ce has started to play with three-year compulsory education and even includes girls in the education system!
Zhao Zhenji could not imagine what it would be like in Luzon twenty years later when a group of well-educated children grew up.
Fortunately, there were insufficient teachers. The young scholars of the Ming Dynasty could only teach some elementary school content. Some of them had not even read "Nine Chapters of Arithmetic", let alone Wang Yuan's new mathematics and physics.
Zhao Zhenji came to the village school and borrowed an elementary school book. When she opened the first chapter, she was shocked.
This article is adapted from "The Imperial Constitution of Tianzhu", which states that all Chinese people are favored by God, and all the land in the world belongs to the Chinese people. Thanks to the efforts of our ancestors, the Chinese land has continued to expand bit by bit. Today, China
With billions of people, China no longer has enough land to distribute, and the Chinese people should explore overseas.
Seizing the land of indigenous and foreign races not only does not violate morality, but follows the way of heaven.
Moreover, God is merciful. As long as you learn Chinese and write Chinese characters, you can become a Chinese citizen and you will be our brothers and sisters.
Zhao Zhenji closed the elementary school book and was silent for a long time, feeling complicated.