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Zhang Pu was silent, holding the tea cup noncommittally, just sipping the tea silently and in small sips, without even looking at the guest. Zhao Yingong felt uneasy again: Could it be that the other party refused his request? Suddenly he became alert. This must be the other party testing him. In order to show their "uncertainty" and express a kind of pressure, Chinese leaders often like to play this kind of psychological tactic.
The only solution is to completely ignore it and respond to silence with silence.
After a while, Zhang Pu said again: "I heard that Mr. has a bookshop in Hangzhou?"
"Yes, Wanbi Bookstore is the industry of students." Zhao Yiggong thought that "Zuo Gu Yan it" is also one of the traditional discourse techniques, and he replied calmly and calmly without being arrogant or impetuous.
"The students are very pleased to hear about the management of Wanbi Bookshop. The gentleman is very knowledgeable."
"Our ancestors have been doing business for several generations before they can earn their next share of the family business. Even if students go to school, they dare not forget that their ancestors shouldered the burden of selling in the market." Zhao Yingong stood up and said respectfully.
This style made Zhang Pu nod his head. He had long heard Sun Chun, Fang Yizhi and other people in the society talk about Mr. Zhao and his Perfect Bookshop. He knew that although Mr. Zhao looked handsome, he was actually very rich. He has little knowledge. In the classics and history collection, he knows almost nothing except "history". He talks about the history of the Song Dynasty in a clear and logical manner. His comments on many characters and events are also very in-depth and appear to be extremely well-researched. However, Speaking of the original texts in "Zizhi Tongjian" and "Song History", most of them know nothing about them. But when it comes to "Miscellaneous Studies" and "Gewu", others are simply ignorant in front of him. Fang Yizhi mentioned in his letter that when he mentioned Zhao Yingong, he expressed his admiration for his miscellaneous knowledge.
All in all, Mr. Zhao's knowledge is very peculiar, and the origin of his reputation as a scholar is self-evident.
What’s even more intriguing is that most of the items sold in Mr. Zhao’s Perfect Bookshop are “Australian products.” Liu Shidou, who happens to be the magistrate of Taicang now, is from Nanhai County. He and Zhang Pu were of the same age and were members of Fushe. Therefore, Zhang Pu knew a lot about the various actions of the "Australians" in Guangdong.
Zhao Yingong was obviously one of the local people in Guangdong who made his fortune from the Australians. Zhang Pu had such a judgment at the beginning, and now he is convinced of it.
The question is, why would a person with a strong Australian background want to save Sun Huodong's future? Although Sun Huodong was obsessed with Western learning. But I have never heard of him having any interaction with Australians.
He asked: "Sir, what do you want to do to relieve the disaster in the east of the fire?"
Zhao Yingong was well prepared and immediately drew a cross on his chest. Zhang Pu nodded and said: "It turns out that Mr. Sun and Sun Huodong are from the same religion!"
He asked again: "Sir, since he has the art of Tao and Zhu, he must be proficient in economics."
Zhao Yingong thought that this divergent thinking was really behind him. Not knowing what he meant, he said, "I know a little bit about it."
"My place in Taicang was originally a corner of Kunshan, Changshu, and Jiading. The terrain is high and high, and the people plant more flowers than grass. Every year, the autumn harvest of white grain must be purchased from other places to complete the harvest. Not to mention the white grain transportation by canal. The sufferings along the way of grain to Beijing. Every year when the grain is bought and the tax is paid, there are often unscrupulous merchants who block the grain merchants from transporting grain for sale, hoarding it, and selling a stone of rice for one, two, three, four cents. The people are miserable and often lose their families because of this. I don’t know, Mr. What’s the answer to that?”
Zhao Yingong was stunned: Is this a test of his own economic skills? He thought about it and understood. Zhang Pu was probably ready to agree to his request, but he wanted to take a look. Do you have the ability that deserves the other person’s help?
If you think about it this way, it’s not surprising at all. The phenomenon of cheap specialties and expensive food is not unusual for Zhao Yingong. Most places where cash crops are mainly grown have similar problems, including Leizhou. However, the situation in Taicang is different from that of Leizhou and other places. Jiangnan was a heavily taxed area in the Ming Dynasty, and the burden of grain tax was very heavy, especially the transportation of white grain to the north, which was an even heavier burden on the local people.
The so-called transportation of white grains to the north refers to the transportation from 24 counties and 1 prefecture in the five prefectures of Suzhou, Changzhou, Songjiang, Jiaxing and Huzhou in the southern Zhili Province to the Capital Supply Warehouse, Guanglu Temple, Wine and Vinegar Noodle Bureau, Zongren Mansion and Bailiang. The official salary tax and grain are allocated more than 210,000 shi every year. The varieties include white-cooked fine rice, white-cooked japonica rice, white-cooked glutinous rice and other high-quality rice varieties, because they are supplied to the six palaces and hundreds of officials for consumption. Therefore, the requirements for rice quality are very high. Therefore, according to official calculations at that time, there was a huge difference between white rice and ordinary rice. Not only that, the consumption of white grain relief is the highest among all kinds of taxes and rice relief. The official annals of the five prefectures and the county annals all declared in unison that those who were discharged from service with insufficient grain would lose their families. After Wanli. Intensifying. Because the road costs a lot, the grain manager needs to subsidize the expenses himself, and non-rich people cannot take up the role. Therefore, until the Ming Dynasty, this battle has always been a nightmare for local wealthy landlords.
He thought about the information he had read. Historically, Zhang Pu was very concerned about this matter - after all, it was a matter in his hometown. The method he proposed at that time was to allocate the rice from Taicang that should be sent to the capital to the military rice of Taicang Guards and Zhenhai Guards. This eliminates the huge expense of transporting rice by water. It is a good way to reduce the burden on the people, and it has certain operability. Zhao Yingong believes that judging from the method proposed by Zhang Pu, he can still grasp the essence of the problem.
Judging from the phenomenon alone, in the process of buying grain at Yihua, some people manipulated grain channels, resulting in a situation where grain was cheap but grain was expensive, which aggravated the burden on the people. The problem should be solved through grain circulation channels. But Zhang Pu saw clearly that the root cause was not the price of grain, but the huge losses in the water transportation process - especially white grain.
The transportation of white grain to the north adopted the so-called government-supervised and democratic movement method, in which the grain chief hired ships, prepared materials, and transported the grain from the canal to Beijing. Starting from receiving the subsidy for transporting grain in the countryside, to going through customs and collecting gates along the way, and finally to the capital to enter the warehouse, endless fees have to be paid at every step.
A grain captain transported less than 500 shi of white grain, but the shipping cost per shi: in Xuande, it was about 3 shi per shi, and by Chenghua, it had risen to 34 shi; in Zhengde and Jiajing, it had risen to 45 shi. ; By the time of Wanli, five or six stones were common, and some even soared to eight stones. By the time of Chongzhen, the cost of one person's food supply could reach 1,500 taels of silver.
In this way, the normal consumption and "expense" are added together, and the shipping cost of each stone of white grain is several times or even more than ten times that of the normal tax. In order to have enough food, the people had to prepare a large amount of excess rice, which greatly increased the demand for foreign food, exacerbating the further rise in grain prices.
Only by trying to eliminate this excess "loss" can we truly reduce the burden on the people. Zhao Yingong thought that for Zhang Pu's era, this was the simplest and most effective method under the existing system.
However, Zhao Yingong knew that this highly feasible approach ultimately failed due to opposition from the water transportation sector. Not only that, even Liu Guangshi, the prefect who reported the matter, was demoted and transferred.
At the end of each dynasty, vested interest groups will stubbornly insist on their own gains, and any slight improvements will not be implemented. Ultimately, it leads to a situation that is difficult to recover from. Compared with the water transport organization of the Qing Dynasty, the water transport organization of the Qing Dynasty was also inferior, inefficient, and highly wasteful. However, it was finally changed to official transport instead of official transport, which liberated the people in Jiangnan who had suffered from transporting grain to Beijing under the rule of the Ming Dynasty. In transportation The efficiency has been greatly improved, and compared with the water transportation of the Ming Dynasty, it was much better.
During Zhao Yingong's one year in Hangzhou, in addition to completing the Bi Bookstore, another thing he did was to conduct an extensive inspection of the people's livelihood economy in Jiangnan. He especially noticed the fairly developed civilian shipping industry in Jiangnan: not only the inland waterway shipping industry has reached a large scale, but also on the coastal routes in the outer sea, the shipping industry in Jiangnan is also very developed, especially in Shanghai County and other places. A large-scale shipping company has emerged. These shipping masters own a dozen or even hundreds of sand ships, traveling north to Shandong, Tianjin, and even to Liaodong, transporting goods from the north to the south. Of course, these shipping owners are still relatively junior: most of them are cargo owners themselves, and they did not just rely on shipping as a career, but they also handle freight while taking into account their own needs. The famous Shachuan Gang in Shanghai County during the Qing Dynasty developed on this basis.
In Zhao Yingong's view, the Ming Dynasty could completely change water transportation to sea transportation, which would not only save huge water transportation costs, directly reduce the burden on the people, but also avoid the huge administrative costs of maintaining water transportation. In terms of comprehensive return rate, it is far more cost-effective than cutting the station.
He has been planning to set up a shipping company to carry out north-south freight. The branch of Dayou in Shanhai 5th Road in Shanghai is renting local sand ships to carry out north-south cargo trade, and it is very profitable. If you set up a shipping company yourself and use the excellent performance of the h800 built by Lingao, the profit will still be Not rolling in.
If it could carry the Ming Dynasty's water transport, Zhao Yiggong would laugh out loud in his dreams. This profit!
Of course, if you want to do big business in Ming Dynasty, big business cannot be done without the support of the Jin gentry behind you. He had originally been interested in Xu Guangqi's family, but now that he heard Zhang Pu asking about it, he suddenly felt that the opportunity had come.
If both Zhang Pu and Fushe realize the benefits of changing water transportation to sea transportation, then their own plan to undertake water transportation will have a high chance of success.
Zhao Yingong said slowly: "Students think that cheap flowers and expensive food are just minor illnesses, but serious illnesses are more serious than water transportation!"
For a moment, he saw a look of appreciation in Zhang Pu's eyes. This is not only because his views are unique, but also because they suit the other party's taste.
Zhao Yingong thought: Shame! The cheating device is on again!
He then straightened out his thoughts and began to talk, starting with the water transportation issues of the Ming Dynasty, and then talking about the various bad regulations and demands for white grain. He said that the burden of the people did not lie in the official wealth, but in the endless "consumption of rice". Seeing that Zhang Pu listened carefully, he gradually turned his attention to the water transport system.
Because he was always ready to "stop water transportation to the sea", he had a lot of useful information about the shortcomings of water transportation in his stomach - all black materials - and now he threw them out one by one, and actually made the Ming Dynasty's water transportation completely useless and hid the country and the people. rs
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