The people of Zhejiang have also been able to recover quickly due to the liberalization of policy support. They are even more prosperous and lively now than during the Chongzhen period. After all, the government has improved, the overall military situation is also very good, foreign trade has been liberalized, and Zhejiang has its own
Many foreign trade ports, tea, raw silk, silk and other major items have allowed them to develop rapidly.
New industries such as shipbuilding, smelting, cannon casting, and musket making are also developing very well.
Not only the gentry and powerful men have now seen a huge increase in their income, but also the farmers and craftsmen, whose income has greatly increased but their burdens have been greatly reduced.
Ruan Dacheng was in Zhejiang and Ma Shiying was in Jiangnan. Not only did they strongly encourage the resumption of industry and commerce, they even accepted refugees from the north of the Yangtze River to go south and used the labor dividends of these refugees to improve the local industrial and commercial manufacturing industry.
For example, in the Jiangnan area around Taihu Lake, a farmer who specializes in growing mulberry can grow about five acres, and a farmer who specializes in rice can grow ten acres.
Although mulberry cultivation can cover five acres, women in a family can only raise silkworms and reel silk for no more than two acres, and many can only raise silkworms for one acre of mulberry. After all, women still have to do housework and take care of children.
Therefore, domestic sericulture and silk reeling have great limitations, mainly due to insufficient domestic labor.
When Ruan and Ma patrolled Jiangsu and Zhejiang, they accepted a large number of refugees from Jiangbei and resettled them in various prefectures and counties. The men were arranged to work in factories, manufacture, mine or farm.
The women asked them to raise silkworms, weave cloth, etc., and set up many new workshops.
Many refugees were even placed directly in the homes of farmers in the south of the Yangtze River. The men farmed the land for help, and the women raised silkworms and weaved cloth. These refugees were assigned to each household, and the income from cultivating the land, raising silkworms, and weaving cloth was divided among the farmers. It was not complete.
An employment relationship is equivalent to a cooperative relationship arranged by government organizations.
The refugees have just moved south and have nothing. They can be resettled to farmers' homes and have a place to stay, and the government can also reduce the burden of resettlement.
For farmers or some small landowners, it is also a good thing that when these people come, they can share some of their hard-earned profits.
For the government, in addition to reducing resettlement costs, it also increased the scale and output of family sericulture and silk weaving. Originally, if a farmer had ten acres of land and the family farmed and weaved, they could cultivate nine acres of land and weave at most.
One acre of mulberry trees, but the income from growing grain is low.
Now if you plant five acres of fields and five acres of mulberry trees, and raise dozens of baskets of silkworms, you can reel dozens of kilograms of silk or weave more than a hundred pieces of silk, which will add a lot of income.
Both farmers and refugees have received many benefits.
The government also obtained more raw silk or silk, export trade, and could obtain more tariffs, etc.
It has also resettled many refugees and provided them with the ability to support themselves, which not only reduces the resettlement burden, but can even receive some taxes from them immediately.
The workshops run by the government can attract more refugees, weave more silk, spin more cotton, etc.
In the hands of Ma Ruan, two governors who were criticized as traitors by many, the economy and taxation of Jiangsu and Zhejiang recovered very quickly, providing Zhu Yihai with a large amount of tax money, and even the food supply was maintained very well.
Zhu Yihai didn't care about Ma and Ruan's previous reputation. What he valued was their current ability to do things, especially whether they could closely follow the central government and obey the emperor's will.
Ruan Shicheng did very well, so he was directly promoted to Minister of Household Affairs, while Ma Shiying was also promoted to Governor of Jiangnan and Governor of Jiangsu, and Governor of the military and administration of Jiangsu and Anhui provinces.
Now Ma Shiying is working very hard in Jiangnan. Suzhou City, which was demolished four times before, now has thousands of looms and countless weavers. The cotton textile industry in Songjiang and Shanghai is also very developed. Now through trade, a large number of people come from Manila, India, etc.
Cotton was imported from the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Britain and other maritime merchants, and then processed in cotton spinning processing centers such as Songjiang and Shanghai, spun into cotton cloth, and even made into garments, which not only supplied the mainland market of the Ming Dynasty, but also sold back to Manila and Bada.
Via, India, and even sold to Amsterdam in the Netherlands, Lisbon in Portugal, London in the UK, and even Mexico in the New World.
A large number of northern refugees were absorbed into these workshops. They exchanged their sweat for silver dollar wages, and then used the wages to buy food. Some workshops even directly provided food and accommodation. Although it was hard to enter the factory, at least they did not have to worry about famine or war.
, the family can settle down and have food and clothing, and the workshop can also provide a lot of tax revenue to the court every year.
The military uniforms of the imperial army and other Ming armies were also produced by several major workshops in Songjiang and Shanghai. The quality was good, the speed was fast, and the price was relatively cheap.
When the Eight Banners of the Tatars were still running around in the north, forcing people to surrender, and even hunting down fugitives everywhere, spring was once again blooming in the south of the Yangtze River in the Ming Dynasty, industry and commerce were booming, and sailing ships were queuing in and out of various ports, and goods were flowing all over the world.
.
The Tatars in Beijing could not even pay out the grain of the Eight Banners, nor could they pay the salaries of hundreds of officials.
However, the Ming Dynasty now collects more taxes year by year, setting new highs repeatedly. It collects more than 30 million shi in grain, land sales, deed taxes, industrial and commercial taxes, customs duties, special taxes on salt, wine, tea and mines, and levies.
More than 40 million yuan.
Zhu Yihai was already completely replacing the muskets and adding artillery to the imperial camp, but the Tatars had completely stopped providing food and wages to the green camp. Even the Eight Banners garrison had to find ways to pay for food themselves.
At this point in the war, Zhu Yihai actually had no pressure at all. He could just keep pushing forward at this pace.
So now he can still fight the war while asking Zhang Huangyan to return to Guangdong and focus on developing the economy and revitalizing industry and commerce.
Foshan Town was one of the four major industrial and commercial towns in the late Ming Dynasty. Its iron smelting industry was developed and famous all over the world. Zhu Yihai specifically confessed that Foshan Town must be well protected and managed well. The iron smelting industry is very important, regardless of whether it is casting cannons or guns.
Or making armor, both are inseparable.
Not to mention that the iron pots in Foshan Town are very famous abroad, and the Guangzhou Guo Guo brand is famous as far as Southeast Asia. This is a best-selling product that earns money from foreign trade, so it needs support.
After the monarch and his ministers passed smoothly.
Zhang Huangyan no longer said that he did not dare to accept the post of governor.
The emperor valued and even relied on him so much that as a minister, he could only bow down and die, so how could he have the nerve to refuse.
Zhu Yihai specially left Zhang Huangyan to eat.
It is still a simple meal of four dishes and one soup. Even though the economy is improving now, especially since the emperor's young governor is very profitable and the internal government is full, the emperor still insists on four dishes and one soup.
I rarely cook those delicacies and delicacies. Last time, a new imperial chef said that his ancestors had a recipe that was passed down from the Tang Dynasty. It was often eaten by the emperors and nobles of the Tang Dynasty. It was called Hun Yang Mianhu.
The method is to kill a goose, remove the feathers and internal organs, then mix the minced meat and glutinous rice with various seasonings, and then stuff it into the goose belly.
Take another sheep, slaughter it, peel off the hair and skin, remove the internal organs, put the goose into the belly of the sheep, sew it up with thread, and roast it on the fire. After the mutton is cooked, open the seam, take out the goose and mix it with food, which is called the mutton.
suddenly.
Some more exquisite ways of eating it include putting chicken in the belly of the goose and pigeons in the chicken belly.
This is said to be a dish, but it is simply roasting a camel and a goose.
Zhu Yihai thought it was too extravagant and wasteful, so he was not allowed to do it.
The emperor rarely even ate a whole roasted chicken or goose. He would personally give instructions on how much he should eat every day to avoid waste.
It's like a meal with twelve or eighteen dishes, how can you finish it all?
It is not clean and hygienic to give it to concubines or servants after you have finished eating it, and let others drink their saliva. Besides, the food is already cold, so there is nothing delicious about it.
Today's four dishes and one soup are also quite refreshing. They are still two meat and two vegetarian dishes, one steamed small yellow croaker and one shredded pork with green pepper.
Zhang Huangyan looked at these dishes and was very emotional.
"The diet of an ordinary family is much more than this. Your Majesty's frugality is admired by the ministers." He said, "There is a folk joke about a group of village women chatting while doing laundry. It is said that the Empress of the East Palace spreads big cakes and the Empress of the West Palace peels green onions.
The emperor ate steamed buns and flatbreads every day.
When he went to court, there were steamed buns on the left and big cakes on the right. When the emperor was full, he would lie on the dragon chair and bask in the sun until he was hungry, then he would get up and eat the flat cakes and steamed buns."
Zhu Yihai couldn't help laughing when he said this.
For ordinary village girls and women who are ignorant, poverty limits their imagination. The best things they have ever seen are steamed buns and flatbreads. They think the emperor is like this too, and he can still eat them every day. Those days are very beautiful.
.
As for those salt merchants and sea merchants, they may have thought that the emperor feasted on dragon liver, phoenix brains, wine, and jade every day, and ate one hundred and twenty dishes in one meal.
"I have heard before that the salt merchants in Yangzhou are the richest and most extravagant. It costs two taels of silver to eat an egg. The hens that lay the eggs eat cordyceps and ginseng every day. How dare I be so extravagant? A pound of pork only costs a few dozen cents.
, this egg is equivalent to the price of a pig."
Zhang Huang said, "During the reign of Emperor Wanli, the monthly food expenses in the palace were more than 12,000 taels, not including various private stoves. It was far less than the extravagance and waste of those salt merchants and maritime merchants. A banquet by the salt merchants could cost
For three thousand taels of silver, salt merchants like Yangzhou thin horses. Some Yangzhou thin horses that have been trained for a while can be sold for one thousand five hundred taels of silver, which is equivalent to a hundred ordinary girls, but it is only half a meal for them.
It’s just food money.”
Zhu Yihai smiled and said, "This shows that they get money so easily, so they don't know how to cherish it when they spend it. Now under the salt policy and salt tax of Ming Dynasty, which salt merchant can get money so easily, and who dares to be so blatant?"
To show off your wealth and compete for wealth?”
Zhang Huangyan nodded, no one dared to do this now.
The emperor had four dishes and one soup every day, and often published his recipes in newspapers, and sometimes wrote short articles about food reviews. Everyone in the world knew that the emperor did not like luxury and opposed waste, so who would dare to show off his wealth?
In the past, there were people who showed off their wealth in a high-profile manner, and even acted unkindly for the sake of it. As a result, they were immediately investigated by the tax department, and then found out about tax evasion, land occupation, bribery of officials and many other things. In the end, they were directly invited to Jinyiwei, and finally handed over to Dali Temple, and finally
Entered the prison of the Ministry of Punishment.
The case was tried by three departments, and the final verdict was that the family would be executed and the whole family would be exiled to Taiwan.
From then on, no one would commit suicide like this again.
