Ye Xianggao, Fang Congzhe and others listened patiently.
Feng Ziying's words were a little off topic. How to build, what kind of ships to build, and how to use these ships were all things for later. What they wanted to hear more was how to get the merchants from Jiangnan to take the initiative without paying the court.
Willing to set up shipyards in Denglai and Liaonan for shipbuilding.
They are all representatives of the gentry in the south of the Yangtze River. If the imperial court does not provide any money, then the only way to get these merchants to go north is to force the wealthy merchants from the south of the Yangtze River to go to the capital just as Emperor Guangyuan did when he moved the capital to the capital eighty years ago. Under the sword, naturally,
They can only bow their heads and obey orders.
That time also greatly damaged the vitality of the Jiangnan gentry and wealthy merchants, and also aroused the Jiangnan gentry's dissatisfaction with the imperial court. The confrontation between the north and the south intensified. Now it will happen again, and these Jiangnan gentry and merchants were forced to invest in establishing establishments in Denglai and Liaonan.
The shipyard is almost like a donation.
The amount of donation is too large, and people have to be tied there. This is undoubtedly the spokesperson of these merchants, including the entire Jiangnan gentry and merchants, which is difficult for them to accept.
Feng Ziying is also obviously aware of this. These guys are obviously not interested in the specific situations of sea trade ships and naval fleet ships that they may face after opening the sea. What they are interested in is how to solve the problems mentioned before.
"To set up a shipyard, the official thought that we could recruit merchants from Jiangnan who are familiar with the shipbuilding industry, and allocate suitable areas in Denglai and Liaonan to give these merchants free of charge. In addition, these merchants can recruit some personnel who are familiar with construction. If they are registered personnel, they can be removed from the registry.
, including registered craftsmen in Qingjiang and Longjiang shipyards, can also apply accordingly..."
This proposal immediately caused an uproar in the palace. Not only the Ministry of Industry, but also the cabinet and other important ministers of the six ministries obviously found it difficult to accept such a suggestion.
Registered craftsmen and technicians are equivalent to the "private property" of the Ministry of Industry. Although they have no power to restrict their personal freedom, their household registration is permanently fixed, inherited from generation to generation, and cannot be deregistered. This is a rule that has been set since ancient times. Now it is necessary to break this
The thousand-year iron rule is undoubtedly difficult for them to accept.
Ye Xianggao and Fang Congzhe were both a little moved.
There is no doubt that this suggestion is beneficial to the merchants from the south of the Yangtze River who are willing to go north to set up shipyards. However, they are also important officials of the imperial court and have to protect the interests of the imperial court. This suggestion obviously still hurts the interests of the imperial court.
This suggestion was obviously too unexpected, and it was no surprise that it would be firmly opposed by other ministers, especially the Ministry of Industry and the ministers from the North. Only Feng Ziying, a stupid young man, dared to speak out like this.
In their view, this suggestion may be difficult to gain support, and rash statements will only attract hostility and criticism.
And this alone will definitely not allow these businessmen to invest huge sums of money in building shipyards in Denglai, southern Liaoning.
Building a shipyard capable of producing ships cannot be accomplished by just relying on a group of technicians and craftsmen, and as Cui Jingrong said among the technicians and craftsmen of Qingjiang Longjiang Shipyard, these people have been separated from the shipbuilding technology that is truly capable of long-distance voyages for too long. I am afraid that
Many of them are incompetent. To truly be a master shipbuilder, you have to recruit and train them yourself.
Seeing that many ministers in the palace were either whispering, getting angry, or sneering and dismissing, Feng Ziying also knew that this would cause public outrage, but if she did not raise this point, she would just watch these two shipyards continue to be so corrupt, and even these craftsmen
It would be a pity that technicians are slowly degenerating into useless people, so even if they offend some people, they have to bring it up.
Seeing that Feng Ziying remained silent, Zhang Huaichang, the censor of Zuodu who had never spoken a word, said sternly: "If you lose your manners in front of the palace, you will be punished according to the law!"
As soon as these words came out, everyone fell silent, and Zhang Huaichang said: "The emperor and the chief minister have already said before, let Feng Xiuzhuan finish the strategy first, and we will discuss the specific situation later. There is no need to just hear the unsatisfactory words.
Such noise makes a scholar who has been an official for many years inferior to an academy student. How can he be decent? It is simply an insult to elegance!"
Feng Ziying's eyes fell on this Zuodu censor. This person's identity was also very special. In theory, he was from Songjiang, Nanzhi Province, but his ancestral home was not Songjiang, but Gai County, Liaodong. However, his father had been with the army since he was a child.
He lived in Songjiang Guards Station, and later passed the Jinshi examination as a military son and entered the imperial court. Therefore, in theory, he was a southerner by birthplace, but at heart he was a northerner, and he was an extremely rare Liaodong native among civil servants.
Zhang Huaichang was the number one figure in the Metropolitan Procuratorate and was in charge of Fengxian. He had a dignified character and was aloof. All the ministers in the court were in awe of him. Even Ye Xianggao and Fang Congzhe also respected him very much.
Fortunately, this person is not the kind of person who is picky. The Metropolitan Procuratorate under his rule basically adheres to this style, except for being stricter on key groups such as the military, Wu Xun and Long Jinwei who have always been targeted.
, he also treated scholars and civil servants quite favorably, so this person had a very good reputation among scholars in the north and south.
After being reprimanded by Zhang Huaichang, the hall immediately fell silent. Feng Ziying then raised her eyes to look at Ye Xianggao. Ye Xianggao nodded. Feng Ziying then continued: "The official also knows that this proposal must be unprecedented, but we and our group
After a detailed on-site inspection at Longjiang Shipyard in Qingjiang, if this situation continues, these craftsmen and technicians will basically be useless within ten years, because the technology of shipbuilding is also changing with each passing day, and they no longer have the ability to manufacture what the people need.
Their ship skills, instead of letting them disappear into the background, why can’t they be put to use in Denglai Liaonan?”
"Besides, the gentlemen from the Ministry of Industry are also here. We all know that these craftsmen are struggling to make a living and have no interest in the matters arranged by the superiors. They will delay as much as they can and rely on whatever they can. This is different from the private shipyards we saw in Ningbo.
The craftsmen and craftsmen must be as different as heaven and earth. There is no incentive and reward mechanism. Whether they do something or not, whether they do more or less, and whether they do well or not, how can we make them work so hard and forget about food and sleep like a private shipyard?
?If you can't afford it early, if you don't have any benefits, who is willing to endure hardships and losses for these small people?"
Feng Ziying specifically pointed out that these were ordinary people, different from the "gentlemen" in the palace, so as not to have to argue about the way of education.
Although it can still be seen that many people disagree and disapprove of this, there are also some people who are thinking about this issue. At least with Zuo Du Yushi's reprimand, no one will jump out and act like a monster at this time.
"When setting up shipyards in Denglai and Liaonan, we must provide encouragement and support to merchants, otherwise how can we attract them? Support for craftsmen and technicians on the one hand, and free support by allocating land on the other hand, but these are not enough. The shipyards have to spend huge amounts of money.
It’s not like the investment of money can produce immediate results. In order to find these merchants from the south of the Yangtze River to go north, some measures must be taken..."
When the drama came, everyone pricked up their ears.
"To build a shipyard, the merchants themselves will definitely have to invest a lot, but they may not have enough money, so what should they do? Some people have thought about asking the court to invest, but after the court has invested, how can we prevent these merchants from misusing the court's money and making shortfalls?
If we intervene in management, will we not distinguish between subject and object, leading to constant internal strife, and ultimately mutual shirking of responsibilities, with the result that things will not work out?"
Feng Ziying asked herself, obviously denying the possibility of imperial funding. This also made some people breathe a sigh of relief. Some people were slightly disappointed, but more people were interested and wanted to see how to solve this deadlock.
This is something that is obvious. If the merchants are asked to pay for the work for the court, they will definitely find various excuses to evade it.
"The lower official's opinion is that he can be encouraged to borrow money from Yinzhuang Money Shop to carry out construction, not only to build shipyards, but also to use this method to build ships in the future..."
This suggestion made many people in the hall shake their heads.
Indeed, there are banks and money shops in Jiangnan and the capital. Many of them are integrated with pawn shops and gold and silver shops. This does not mean that you cannot borrow money, but borrowing is basically carried out in the form of mortgage, such as gold and silver jewelry and gold and silver jewelry.
Antiques, such as fur clothes, silk and satin, can even be pledged with land deeds in exchange for money, but that is basically not a loan, but a pledge, and of course there will definitely be interest and handling fees.
However, the amount of this kind of pledge to exchange money is generally small, usually ranging from a few taels to a few hundred taels, and those with more than a thousand taels are basically rare. After all, what can be used as a pledge for thousands of taels of silver?
, if you really have the land deed, you don’t need to go to a pawn shop. You can borrow money directly from friends or lenders.
As for the real money shops and banks in this era, they were basically set up to collect handling fees for merchants' deposit and exchange services, and basically had no lending business.
But this is different for shipbuilding and shipbuilding loans. Thousands of dollars may be spent at any time. Which pawn shop or bank store dares to undertake such a job that can make the shop collapse with a loss?
There is no precedent for this.
But the eyes of Emperor Yonglong, Ye Xianggao, Fang Congzhe, Zheng Jizhi and Li Sancai were already bright, and they heard the hidden meaning in Feng Ziying's words.
Regarding the issue of tribute bricks in Linqing, Cui Jingrong mentioned in his memorial that the ban on tribute bricks should be lifted. However, many merchants with skills and manpower suffered from not having enough money to start a business, and the interest rate for borrowing usury was too high and the risks were too high.
It is large, which restricts the development of the tribute brick manufacturing industry.
In his memorial, he mentioned Feng Keng's suggestion that the imperial court could open a bank, or form a joint venture with private merchants, mainly to support such businesses that were beneficial to people's livelihood and beneficial to the imperial court.
However, this memorial was later handed over by Emperor Yonglong to the cabinet for deliberation. Although he agreed to lift the ban on tribute bricks, the proposal was only circulated among the cabinet and the Ministry of Household and Work, and was not taken seriously, let alone implemented.
And now that Feng Ziying's old story has been brought up again, it is obvious that he has really taken this matter as a key part of it.
This guy is really awesome. He actually makes a move in advance and responds step by step, making you follow him unknowingly. Both Ye Xianggao and Fang Congzhe saw a bit of fear hidden behind the admiration in each other's eyes.
