"I hope Lao Zhu will kill harder, so that my father and I can kill less in the future..."
Sitting on the stone steps of the arrow tower, Zhu Gaoxu pouted and expressed his true thoughts.
To be fair, Lao Zhu's killing was really not ruthless in the history of the North and South List case.
If he remembered correctly, after Zhu Yuanzhang's death, although no one was doing the North-South Ranking during the Jianwen period, that was because the top two were almost surrounded by southerners.
Zhu Di put a lot of effort into rectification, moving the capital, and setting up official schools in the north. In short, Zhu Di did everything that could increase the literary style of the north. Therefore, in the middle and late period of his reign, northern scholars accounted for a larger share of the Jinshi quota. The ratio has never been lower.
However, it is still a commonplace topic. When history reached the point where Zhu Gaoxu's good brother and nephew came to power, the situation immediately began to collapse.
From the Hongxi to Chongzhen years, among the more than 200 prefectures in the Ming Dynasty, among the top ten that produced the most Jinshi, only Xi'an and Kaifeng in the north were on the list. The other eight prefectures were all from Jiangnan. Suzhou, which ranked first, had 890 Jinshi. Fourteen.
Among the more than 24,000 Jinshi in the Ming Dynasty, more than 13,000 were from Southern Zhili, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi.
In this situation, it is not an exaggeration to say that Jiangnan controls the court.
If Jiajing had not instigated discord and caused the Southerners to fall into internal strife, perhaps the Southerners would have been in control of the court.
Although this situation was conducive to the continued development of the Ming Dynasty, it was at the end of the dynasty, not the early days.
The unity of the literati in the south of the Yangtze River was good for the middle and late Ming Dynasty, but it was not good for the early Ming Dynasty, because the Ming Dynasty in the early Ming Dynasty needed to constantly allocate finances from the south of the Yangtze River to support the north. If the southerners were too strong, it would affect the recuperation and regeneration of the north, and then feed back the south. plan of.
"You kill more so that your grandson can move the capital in the future..."
Thinking of Jiangnan's group hug, Zhu Gaoxu couldn't help but sigh.
In his opinion, it was necessary to move the capital to Peking.
From a geographical point of view, Peiping is a place close to the sea. After the opening of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, you can go from Peiping to Tianjin by land or water, and the distance does not exceed 300 miles.
This distance is closer than Paris to Le Havre and can support the country's maritime activities.
Coupled with its unique geographical location, with the Liaodong Peninsula, Jiaodong Peninsula and the Imperial City Islands in the east as the frontier, and the Yanshan Mountains in the north as a defensive position, it can be said that before the 19th century, Peiping had sufficient strategic depth.
This place is much safer than Nanjing, whether on land or sea, and is more suitable to become the capital.
If geographical location and military are just two of the reasons, then moving the capital to Peking is a good move politically and economically.
No matter in what era, the capital city is a golden sign for attracting population and developing economy, and the Ming Dynasty was no exception.
Establishing the capital in Nanjing will not greatly improve the economic situation around Nanjing, but will increase employment difficulties.
Jiangnan is already densely populated, and if the capital is placed in Jiangnan, it will only allow Jiangnan to further attract talents and people from across the country.
In later generations, economically developed provinces often have to transfer payments to economically backward provinces, because this can help backward provinces improve their economies and help backward provinces.
Of course, the reason for this is also the problem of economically powerful provinces buying resources from backward provinces at par or even at low prices to develop themselves.
The same principle applies in ancient times.
Modern resources are steel, manpower, food and other resources, and the same is true for ancient resources.
Jiangnan literati selfishly feel that they are supporting all provinces except Jiangnan, but without the grain, steel, coal and various resources shipped from these provinces, Jiangnan would not have developed so fast.
Sitting in that position, Zhu Gaoxu has to consider balancing the economic differences among various regions, and transferring wealth from economically developed regions to economically backward regions to help them with construction is only the most basic point.
Allocating money and food from the south of the Yangtze River to support the north would dissatisfy the people of the south of the Yangtze River for a long time. In this case, it would be better to simply locate the capital in the north, especially in Beiping, an economically backward area after the Mongolian and Jin War.
In this way, let alone siphoning the population from the south of the Yangtze River, simply using taxes to continuously transport the wealth from the south of the Yangtze River to Peking through the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and then distributing the wealth from the south to the surrounding Hebei region via Peiping, is enough to help. Hebei's economy recovers.
If Zhu Gaoxu remembers correctly, the population of Peking City in the eighth year of Hongwu was only 140,000. However, since Zhu Di moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing, with the immigration policy and the continuous migration of people serving as officials, by the late Jiajing period, the population of Beijing City had reached To the extent of nearly 700,000 people.
If we include the soldiers and their families stationed in Beijing, as well as those living in and outside the imperial city who directly served the court, the population of the capital in the late Jiajing period basically reached 850,000.
A move to move the capital instantly transformed Peiping from a border town to a prosperous metropolis second only to Nanjing. The literary style in Hebei began to flourish.
This move is undoubtedly a good move for the historical process.
The only thing worthy of criticism is that the emperors after Zhu Di, except for Chenghua, few emperors carried out large-scale reclamation and economic construction in Beizhili.
Because the population of Hebei in the Ming Dynasty was only one-fiftieth of that of later generations, the land was rich in water resources. Lakes such as Triangle Lake, Baiyang Lake, and Wugong Lake that became smaller or disappeared in later generations all existed in this era.
Many dead rivers are everywhere in this era.
However, there are good arable land resources. Except for Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Di, and Zhu Jianshen, no emperor in the Ming Dynasty carried out large-scale reclamation operations.
As long as the potential of northern Zhili's cultivated land is developed, it can support an army of 200,000 to 300,000 people. However, the potential of Hebei's cultivated land was not fully exploited until the end of the Ming Dynasty.
As for farming, Zhu Gaoxu is the best at it.
Thinking like this, Zhu Gaoxu flipped through the front page of "Di Bao" again.
Although the North-South List case is the top priority this year, this case does not involve Zhu Gaoxu after all.
He wanted to see if there was anything related to him in the south, but he didn't see anything related to him. Instead, he read the news about Lao Zhu moving to the world to enrich the people.
When he saw this news, Zhu Gaoxu was stunned, and instantly connected this incident with the North and South List case that had just happened.
To move the rich households all over the world, to put it mildly, they are wealthy households, and to put it badly, they are powerful households. After all, those wealthy households who use seven hundred acres as a standard are not simple common people.
Based on the current field output, even if it is 700 acres in the north, it can produce at least 600 shi after tax, which is equivalent to 200 guan.
In today's era when ordinary people only have eight or nine guan a year, or more than ten guan at most, this annual income of 200 guan is enough to support a large family, let alone the annual income of just one family.
Ever since Qin Shihuang moved the nobles of the six countries to Guanzhong, any king with great talent and strategy will impose corresponding sanctions on the world's powerful.
The mausoleum system of the Western Han Dynasty is the same as the later Sui and Tang Dynasties when they migrated powerful people to Guanzhong and Luoyang. And Lao Zhu, an emperor who liked the customs of the Han and Tang Dynasties, naturally would not miss learning this method.
In Zhu Gaoxu's view, although Lao Zhu has carried out several methods of relocating and enriching the people before, that was before, not now.
The reason why Lao Zhu was able to successfully move to rich families all over the world before was because his old team was strong enough, and the nobles of Huaixi and the literati of Jiangnan and Zhejiang were not against each other.
However, with the disintegration of the nobles in Huaixi, the literati in Jiangnan and western Zhejiang had no enemies. In addition, Lao Zhu was often sick in his old age. If he continued to do this, some people would naturally be dissatisfied.
This principle can also be applied to the question of why Zhu Di was able to move the capital.
The former has the Huaixi Xungui, and the latter has the Jingnan Xungui. These two political groups are the mainstay of Lao Zhu and Zhu Di's policy reforms.
You can use the gun barrel, but you can't live without it.
Once the gun barrel is out of your hand, the enemy will naturally dare to yell at you when they see that you have no gun.
Only by putting the gun on their foreheads or hanging it on their waists so that these people can see it anytime and anywhere will they be honest and content.
Thinking of this, Zhu Gaoxu glanced at the door of the arrow tower.
He must also have this gun barrel...
Thinking like this, Zhu Gaoxu continued to read the "Di Bao". If he remembered correctly, in addition to the North and South List case, the southwest will also fall into war this year, and internal fighting will break out in Luchuan, which was defeated by the Ming Dynasty, and then affect the southwest. situation.
If internal fighting really breaks out in Luchuan, it may be able to continue to contain Xu Huizu and the others.
Unfortunately, Zhu Gaoxu looked through the previous Di newspapers and saw no news about Luchuan.
A large number of rebellions broke out in the Yun, Gui, Sichuan, Guizhou and southern Huguang areas, but they were all too small in scale to even affect the entire territory.
"its not right……"
Touching his bald chin, Zhu Gaoxu thought that the civil strife in Lucchuan was a very important matter. Mu Chun, a general in the southwest, also contracted an illness during the process of pacifying the civil strife in Lucchuan and died of illness in the army shortly after the war.
In terms of heart, Zhu Gaoxu did not want Mu Chun to die, but in terms of performance, Mu Chun's death would be of no benefit to Jingnan.
Mu Chun was not his younger brother Mu Sheng. He was a man who was in charge of military and political affairs. He solved the main chieftains in the southwest in the early Ming Dynasty and defeated Luchuan.
Even if we don't talk about military affairs, there is a huge gap in the evaluation of the two brothers by their contemporaries.
The civil servants and generals of the Hongwu period compared Mu Chun with Li Sheng and Li Su of the Tang Dynasty, and evaluated Mu Sheng as a general who fought well.
Muchun is someone who can actually command regiment-level operations and win consecutive battles.
From joining the army at the age of seventeen to dying of illness at the age of thirty-six, during nineteen years of fighting and fighting, he never experienced a single failure. He was so good that even Lao Zhu said to the officials, "This is the child of my family."
If such a person were alive, I am afraid that the person who led the Yunnan Corps out of Yunnan to participate in the Jingyan Rebellion was not He Fu, but Mu Chun.
Thinking of this, Zhu Gaoxu felt a bit toothache, but when he thought about it carefully, if Muchun could continue to live, putting aside the Battle of Jingnan, this would be a great thing for the Ming Dynasty and his father and son.
If Muchun were alive, he would be able to take care of Annan and go deep into Burma, and he would definitely be able to fight well. Ming Dynasty's territory in the southwest would be further expanded.
In this way, Zhu Neng does not have to go south, and naturally he will not die of illness due to acclimatization in Guangxi. Zhu Di will naturally have more Mesozoic generals at his disposal, and will be more able to deal with the north or the northwest.
"It's so difficult..."
Zhu Gaoxu had a headache when he thought of all this, and then thought of his own experience.
He picked up the previous promotion roster and opened it again to take a closer look.
Compared to the rush just now, this time he looked at it extremely carefully.
Among the thousands of households under his command, only Wang Yi and Meng Zhang were not transferred away. The remaining few were either transferred to the Shendian Guard in Guangdong with Zhang Chun, or were transferred to the Kaiping Fifth Guard with Lin Su.
Lin Su became the commander, and the other several thousand households became the commanders at the lowest level.
In the army, many of the seventeen hundred households who participated in that battle were transferred to all over the world, and they were basically promoted to thousand households.
Zhu Gaoxu originally had a headache, but when he saw the direction where these people were going, he couldn't help but have a strange expression.
"Who did this promotion? How..."
For a moment, Zhu Gaoxu didn't know how to evaluate this promotion roster.
It was not a big deal to transfer three thousand households and seven hundred households under him, including Zhang Chun, to the south. Fu Rang, Lin Su, and the rest were transferred to Liaodong, Beiping, and Daning. This is where Zhu Gaoxu failed to hold on.
After seeing where they were transferred, Zhu Gaoxu felt that God was doing him a favor.
After just a few breaths, Zhu Gaoxu not only lost his previous worries, but also wanted to snicker.
He subconsciously stretched out his hand and put it on his face, but at this moment, there were rapid footsteps outside.
"Your Highness!"
With just one sound, Zhu Gaoxu recognized Wang Yi's voice, which made him quickly suppress his smile.
"Your Highness, I heard that the imperial court wants to transfer us to the south. Is this true?"
"Yeah, we're not going, the fields have just been allocated!"
"Bah! Xu Manzi, you can't say anything nice. What do you mean you won't go after the land is divided? If His Highness doesn't go, we won't go!"
"Yes, yes, yes! I said the wrong thing..."
As soon as Zhu Gaoxu suppressed his smile, Wang Yi led several thousand households and a dozen hundred households into the arrow tower and saw Zhu Gaoxu sitting on the steps.
They shouted their thoughts, while Zhu Gaoxu had a complicated expression.
He wanted to laugh because the Fifth Army Governor's Mansion had helped him, but facing the indignant looks of everyone, he knew he couldn't laugh, but should pretend to be sad.
The two emotions were mixed together, making him laugh but not laugh, and cry but not cry.
"Your Highness...are you...ok?"
Wang Yi looked at the strange appearance of His Highness and cautiously stepped forward to ask.
Zhu Gaoxu, on the other hand, immediately sniffed when Wang Yi said this, pretending to be sad just now.
"Alas..." He sighed deliberately: "I don't want some of you to leave Jilin City, but this is for your future and prospects."
"After all, Jilin City only has six thousand households, two commanding officers and one commanding envoy, so the positions are limited."
"You get the credit this time. You deserve promotions and transfers. Don't act like a little girl."
Zhu Gaoxu shook his head and preached, and at the same time took out the roster and handed it to Wang Yi:
"Show this to the brothers. Those who want to leave don't have to worry about the land. The land allocated to you will not be taken back. If you want to sell it, I will take it back according to the land price in Peking. If you are not willing to sell it, you are willing to put your family back." If you stay here to cultivate the fields, or if you want to hire people to help with the cultivation, I will never stop you."
"Your Highness, that's not what I meant..." After hearing Zhu Gaoxu's words, Qianhu Xu Sheng, who had previously been clamoring for the separation, explained with a red face.
Seeing this, Zhu Gaojiu stepped forward and patted him on the shoulder: "I know you don't mean that. Anyway, you should first see where you are transferred to. After reading it, talk about your thoughts. Should you sell the fields or rent them to others for farming? It's all up to you, just tell Wang Yi after you decide."
"Don't worry, you still have at least three months to think about it. It will be enough to go to Nanjing City to report on your work at the end of the year."
After explaining everything clearly, Zhu Gaoxu also walked out of the watchtower, and at the same time saw Yang Bin standing on the horse path chatting with Yi Shiha.
Zhu Gaoxu walked towards them. When Yang Bin saw him, he bowed and sang from a distance: "Your Highness is blessed!"
"Okay, no need to go through so many etiquettes. Rather than congratulations, I want to know how many things you have brought."
Zhu Gaoxu raised his hand to stop him and got down to business.
He was not surprised by Yang Bin's appearance, because Wang Yi was the person he sent to the south to escort Yang Bin and the food northward.
Wang Yidu appeared, which meant that Yang Bin and the grain team he escorted should also have arrived, so Zhu Gaoxu looked outside the city while asking Yang Bin.
Sure enough, outside the city of Jixibao, thousands of horse-drawn carriages and thousands of soldiers from the Bohai and Liaodong armies were waiting to enter the city.
"Your Highness is wise..." Yang Bin stood up with a smile, and then talked about what he brought this time:
"After the grassroots returned to the south last year, they began to buy grain. In the middle of the first month of this year, more than 200,000 grains were stored in Dengzhou and Laizhou."
"After spring started in February, the common people hired boats to go north. They waited for almost two months before Wang Qianhu's team arrived at Thirty Thousand Guards."
"This time, the four thousand horse-drawn carriages brought a total of 3,000 shi of bean feed, 50,000 guan of money, and more than 5,000 shi of grain. The draft horses were fed 427 shi of bean feed on the way. What arrived was …”
Yang Bin wanted to go on in detail, but Zhu Gaoxu raised his hand to indicate that he could.
Seeing this, Yang Bin stopped reporting in detail, and Zhu Gaoxu also looked at Yishiha on the side: "The draft horses in the station will be prepared tomorrow. They will follow Wang Yi to the south and transport the grain back as soon as possible."
"Yes" Yishuha nodded, and Zhu Gaoxu also looked at Yang Bin again: "How much food is stored at Thirty Thousand Guards now, and how much more is shipped from the south. Have you encountered any difficulties along the way?"
Zhu Gaoxu asked three questions in a row, and as Yang Bin expected, he replied calmly: "Go back to your highness, the 30,000 guards still have more than 374,000 shi of grain, and there are still 120,000 shi of grain in the south. It is ready to be shipped, and there are still more than 70,000 guan left in the hands of the grain merchants below, who are still collecting grain in the south."
"But the common people have to give His Highness a warning, that is, the food may be less than expected."
When Yang Bin said this, he saw Zhu Gaoxu frown, so he quickly explained:
"The reason why there is less food than expected is mainly because we were transporting food to the north. On the way, we met many subordinate officials who stopped us from getting food. We were a little greedy by these subordinate officials on the way."
"In addition, since the beginning of this year, many yamen in the north have been collecting grain. The common people do not dare to compete with them in a big way, so they can only collect some grain from towns and villages at high prices."
Speaking of this, Yang Bin also specifically mentioned Zhou Xing: "By the way, Your Highness, the grassroots met General Zhou when they went south last year."
"It is precisely because Zhou Zongbing gave the grassroots a slip of the border that the grassroots could buy grain in this way without attracting the attention of the court."
"General Zhou?" Zhu Gaoxu was surprised that Zhou Xing would actually help Yang Bin, but if he thought about it carefully, it was better to say that he was helping Zhu Gaoxu than Yang Bin.
Zhou Ding's matter could be big or small. He didn't expose it, so he gave Zhou Xing some favor, and Zhou Xing should reciprocate.
"Okay, I know this. Is there anything else going on in the south?"
Zhu Gaoxu came back to his senses and asked Yang Bin. Apparently he saw that Yang Bin was a little anxious.
Sure enough, as soon as he opened his mouth, Yang Bin said in embarrassment: "Your Highness, our fur business may have to stop."
"Why?" Zhu Gaoxu frowned and asked, while Yang Bin said with shame: "The imperial court moved the rich families from all over the world to Nanjing. These rich families have sold off their fields and houses and just want to go to Nanjing with gold and silver. Where is the extra money? He came to buy furs, so His Highness’s business was affected.”
After Yang Bin said this, Zhu Gaoxu realized how painful it was to cut himself with the knife.
"I should have thought of it..." Zhu Gaoxu held his forehead and sighed. When he read the "Di Bao" about Lao Zhu's migration to become powerful, he thought that this had little to do with him, but now that he thought about it, it had a lot to do with it.
High-quality furs were a rarity and were considered a luxury item in the Ming Dynasty, which ordinary people could not afford.
Now that all the rich families in the world have been moved to Nanjing by Lao Zhu, they have no source of income, so they naturally have to cut back on food and clothing. Then their furs have no market.
Although the speed of land annexation is very fast, after the powerful people are moved away, a new group of powerful people will be born in the local area in a few years, but I don't have a few years to wait.
"Your furs are unsalable?" Zhu Gaoxu asked Yang Bin, and he nodded: "The shipping speed is three or four times slower than before. Only nobles, clans, and officials want to eat last year's batch of fur garments. , I’m afraid it will take three or four years…”
"Three or four years..." Zhu Gaoxu's face turned ugly when he heard this.
He originally thought that Yang Bin could deal with last year's furs at the end of this year, and then transport the grain to Jilin City next year, so that he would have enough food to go south to fight the decisive battle with the Liaodong capital before the Jingnan disaster.
But now it seems that his plan can't keep up with the changes after all, and now he can only find another way.
"Stop trading the furs in the treasury."
When the idea came to his mind, Zhu Gaoxu explained Yi Shiha, and then looked at Yang Bin when he nodded:
"There are still more than 40,000 furs in the treasury. I also calculated the amount before, and it was almost 140,000 furs."
"You take this batch of furs to the south and wait for them to be sold, and I will leave them with you to pay off the debt."
"As for this batch of money, how about you take it out of your hands first, leave 50,000 yuan for me, and still buy food for the rest?"
Zhu Gaoxu had no choice but to let Yang Bin continue to take money from home to buy food for himself first and use the goods to pay off the bill.
Yang Bin has been doing business with him for so many years and has accumulated a lot of capital. He should be able to get this money.
"Your Highness, even if Your Highness doesn't say so, ordinary people will continue to buy food."
Yang Bin saw Zhu Gaoxu's embarrassment, and not only agreed to his request, but also took the initiative to say: "The tea bait in your Highness's hands, as well as the iron materials in Jilin City, can actually be used for business. Take a look... "
"No need, tea is useful to me, and iron materials are scarce in Jilin City."
Faced with Yang Bin's kindness, Zhu Gaoxu had no choice but to refuse.
He doesn't have much time anymore. The iron materials in Jilin City can only be left to Jilin City for its own use.
In addition, he also has to think about new sources of wealth, otherwise it will be difficult to win against Liaodong Dusi with Jilin City's foundation.
(End of chapter)
