Chapter 634: The dark grandson of the Ming Dynasty

Style: Historical Author: Writing and Seeing the Spring and Autumn PeriodWords: 4285Update Time: 24/01/12 03:43:00
Faced with his wife's insistence, Li Jinglong had no choice but to agree.

Over the years, Ding has never interfered with Li Jinglong's affairs, except for this matter.

In fact, it was not that Li Jinglong was unwilling to take his brother-in-law on a voyage to the West. It was just that he had just been appointed and was at the cusp of the storm, so he wanted to set an example first.

There are really too many people staring at it, and almost every honorable family has conveyed their intentions overtly or covertly. Everyone can imagine how much benefit it will produce on such a large scale.

If it had been anyone else, it would have been fine. Now Taisun was in charge, and he had never seen Taisun doing a loss-making business.

All the famous chambers of commerce in the Ming Dynasty had their presence in the capital.

When the big event of the voyage to the West came out, those who were qualified immediately got together.

Nanjing Restaurant.

It's not so much a restaurant, but it's more than just a place to eat and sleep.

This was newly built a year ago and opened at the beginning of the 29th year of Hongwu. It is the largest in the entire capital and is located at the junction of the inner and outer cities.

When this restaurant was built, it involved the residences of many officials and nobles, so they were demolished directly. No one could guess the background behind this.

The high consumption is simply not accessible to ordinary people.

The cost of one meal may be a person's income for several months or even the previous year.

The front yard is also for consumption, and the back yard has 108 rooms of various types. The cheapest one costs 20 guan per night, and can only be booked by members.

If you want to become a member, you must first top up Wan Guan Bao Banknotes.

This threshold is enough to stop most people.

After spending this money, the ostentation is certainly not small.

In this backyard, there is a separate Public Security Department to maintain order and safety, and the patrols are all government officials.

There are people serving you at twelve hours. Even if you get up in the middle of the night and want to eat some pastries, there will be people waiting to make them right away.

There were no gongs or drums when it opened, but on the opening day, the 108 backyard rooms were already being booked.

You must know that the ten most expensive rooms here cost 888 guan per night.

That's it, it starts with a monthly subscription, not a daily basis at all.

In other words, these ten rooms alone can bring in more than 3 million yuan of treasure money every year.

When Zhu Yuanzhang first heard his grandson talking about this number, he really couldn't speak for a long time.

"Let's just say that a big restaurant like Da Sunzheng can have an annual income of 20 to 30 million yuan a year?" Zhu Yuanzhang was somewhat incredulous.

Even though I was numb before, I still feel very shocked now.

Even if it's housing, it's nothing like robbing money.

The eldest grandson could have snatched it directly and given it to someone to stay for one night.

Do we really have so many enemies in Ming Dynasty?

Zhu Yuanzhang felt that he had some doubts about life now.

At that time, in order to increase the annual income from taxes and the money in the national treasury, he racked his brains to increase revenue and reduce expenditure. After working for more than 20 years, his annual income was only as high as a restaurant.

This made Zhu Yuanzhang feel very bad. Was his relationship all in vain?

Zhu Ying explained: "You can't look at it this way. The economy is different now. After the expansion of sea trade, these merchants involved in sea trade made a lot of wealth in a short period of time."

"Our various products from Daming are absolutely best-selling overseas. As long as they can be shipped on the ship, there is no need to worry about not being able to sell them. And because many goods are now produced on a large scale in factories, the cost is gradually decreasing. Decrease, making profits bigger.”

"And after these merchants sell our Ming goods overseas, they make huge profits when they resell them. After all, they can sell as much as they want. This is not easy to control. It all depends on their own abilities."

"Our Ming Navy protects the safety of the waterways. Now the Japanese pirates have all disappeared. The safe waterways have brought great benefits to maritime trade.

In order to achieve greater prosperity, as long as they participate in maritime trade, almost everyone has a very stable income. "

"According to the situation reported below, ordinary chambers of commerce can earn thousands or even tens of thousands of taels of silver every month. Those large chambers of commerce that have their own merchant ships are even more outrageous. The largest merchant ship is said to earn one hundred thousand taels of silver in one trip. "

"Not only Nanyang, but also the Japanese country has more silver. Several uncles in the Japanese country have at least three or four medium-sized silver mines. The silver processed every day is already comparable to the amount of silver we print."

Mineral deposits such as silver or gold are the real hard currency of the world. After smelting and processing, they can be used directly.

The four major vassal kings of the current Japanese vassal have become symbols of divine power.

And these large amounts of silver naturally flowed into the market economy of the Ming Dynasty in a large scale.

According to the laws of the Ming Dynasty, treasure banknotes are the current official currency, and private transactions of silver are illegal. Therefore, large amounts of silver are deposited in the royal bank and exchanged for treasure banknotes.

The Baobao Banking Department is currently recruiting a large number of people. Due to the very large amount of silver exchange, the Baobao Banking Department has been unable to keep up and can only continue to expand its scale.

The economy is developing so fast that Zhu Yuanzhang feels that he has fallen behind the times. Overall, he is naturally very surprised.

"We think we can open more restaurants like this."

"Not only in the capital, but also in various coastal cities, restaurants similar to this can be opened. This is a lot of money."

Zhu Yuanzhang said seriously that he felt that Yu Daming was just like picking up money now, and he would get a lot of money no matter what he did next.

After finishing speaking, Zhu Yuanzhang added: "Now our Ming Dynasty has more and more money and more and more people, but the number of farmers is constantly decreasing."

"High-yielding crops can bring a lot of food, but there is an upper limit for the population that this food can carry. If there is any natural disaster, it will be a disaster for the people of the Ming Dynasty."

"A few years ago, we issued an edict to convert agriculture into mulberry farming in many areas. Nowadays, silk and cotton fields are selling well, and more and more people are unwilling to grow food. This is not a good phenomenon. At this point, Da Sun wants to Just think of a way to deal with it."

"Otherwise, these prosperous scenes in front of us will be like a mirror that is about to be shattered."

Zhu Yuanzhang urged, saying that he knew very well how exaggerated the population growth of the Ming Dynasty was. Some time ago, when he walked around the capital, he found that every household was raising children, and most of them had more than one or two.

The emergence of these Ming Dynasty newborns means that it will not take long for the population to explode.

The weather now is getting colder every year.

Under the cover of high-yielding crops, rice and wheat production are actually already declining. However, because high-yielding crops are planted and harvested in large quantities, this phenomenon is not obvious.

Zhu Yuanzhang has always paid close attention to this area. He knew very well that food was the foundation of the Ming Dynasty and the foundation of the country.

Now to cater to the development of commerce, the prices of silk and cotton are rising continuously. Ten acres of land is not as good as one acre of mulberry. Naturally, the people want to plant mulberry fields instead of rice fields.

Zhu Yuanzhang realized that if things went on for a long time, there would definitely be a big problem.

Zhu Ying said: "Actually, my grandson is already aware of this problem. More and more farmers are trying their best to leave the village and no longer do the work of digging in the soil."

"It is difficult to effectively change this problem with the current development of Ming Dynasty, so now Sunzi can only solve it by finding food and population from the outside world."

Zhu Yuanzhang was silent for a moment and asked, "How many people are there now?"

Zhu Ying hesitated for a moment: "Now there are about more than two million people registered."

After Zhu Yuanzhang finished listening, he paused for a moment without speaking. After a long time, he sighed: "This is a temporary solution, not the root cause. It will definitely be a hidden danger in the long run, but this is the only way to do it now."

Zhu Yuanzhang knew very well that there was another illegal person in the Ming Dynasty.

The industry is currently not subject to severe restrictions by the government, and even Da Sun is doing it secretly.

The contradiction of the Ming Dynasty lies in the land economy, and food is the foundation of the country. No matter how much money you have, it cannot be used as food. If you encounter natural disasters and famine, big problems will arise.

High-yield crops are good, but there is still no way to preserve them under severe drought and floods.

Natural disasters are natural disasters, and no crops can grow.

Therefore, the country must have enough food reserves to cope with various crises.

The rapid growth of population means huge consumption.

Going against the laws of history, in an environment like the Little Ice Age, it was to stimulate population growth and seize the world market first.

For Zhu Ying, or for Daming, it is both an opportunity and a challenge.

If it is not handled well, then the current prosperity of the Ming Dynasty is likely to be a flash in the pan during Zhu Ying's reign, and it may not take too long for it to return to its previous trajectory.

This is certainly not the result Zhu Ying wants.

Therefore, human trafficking became popular.

The overseas population was constantly resold to the Ming Dynasty, and even gave birth to a large number of manor owners.

The reason why they are called manor owners instead of landlords is because these lands are controlled by Zhu Ying and are leased to wealthy families.

The economic sources of these aristocratic families, in addition to maritime trade, also involve the introduction of a large number of people.

Very early on, or when the Ming Dynasty newspaper became popular, Zhu Ying was already laying the groundwork.

He used the capital's newspapers and word-of-mouth propaganda from merchants on the sea to continuously spread the wealth of the Ming Dynasty, thereby attracting a large number of overseas residents to migrate to the Ming Dynasty.

At the same time, a large amount of gold and silver was secretly allocated for human transactions in some chambers of commerce.

These overseas residents who were bought are generally in good health. After they arrive in Ming Dynasty, someone will bring them to the manor to plant various crops.

And they have not entered the Ming Dynasty household registration, and most of them have no possibility of entering the Ming Dynasty household registration in this life.

Those who can obtain the Ming Dynasty household registration can only have some technical talents or make great contributions.

These are the more than two million people Zhu Ying mentioned.

Using the historical name, it can be called Kunlun slave.

.......

At this time, in Nanjing restaurants, a large number of chamber of commerce bosses gathered together to discuss joining the Ming Dynasty's voyages to the West.

This does not mean joining the government's fleet, but following the government's fleet.

Even if you follow, you still need to compete for qualifications, which does not mean that just anyone can do it.

"This voyage to the West must be the largest in scale since ancient times. With the current navy of the Ming Dynasty, I dare say that there will be at least this number of treasure ships traveling."

The big shopkeeper of the Sihai Chamber of Commerce stretched out his palm and said.

Suddenly someone exclaimed: "Five hundred treasure ships, this is too exaggerated. It can wipe out many small countries. I'm afraid there are tens of thousands of soldiers accompanying it."

Apart from the Ming Dynasty officials, maritime merchants were the most aware of the overseas situation.

Not to mention the five hundred treasure ships, there were fifty ships. In the Nanyang and Western areas, they were also the absolute top existence.

The five hundred treasure ships are not enough to kill chickens with a sledgehammer, they are completely anti-aircraft guns to kill mosquitoes.

The Four Seas Chamber of Commerce dares to use the name Four Seas, and the natural background and backstage are sufficient. Not to mention anything else, just being able to meet Uncle Zhang alone is already a status symbol.

Everyone's eyes turned red when they heard the Sihai Chamber of Commerce say such a certain number.

"Five hundred treasure ships, how much cargo can they carry? They are going to be completely dumped in the South and West. I'm afraid the treasures are worth hundreds of millions."

"If we can get a little bit of it, then... then..."

The shopkeeper of the Chamber of Commerce couldn't help but make a sound.

Just to be beaten again immediately

He pressed down: "This time we are going directly to the Western Ocean. Such a long distance cannot be traveled without a big ship."

"In other words, if I have been traveling overseas for several years this time, even if there is no additional requirement for food, then in Kunlun Slave..."

"How dare you talk nonsense!!!" Before the man in front had finished speaking, the boss of a large chamber of commerce immediately stood up and angrily shouted.

The young shopkeeper in front suddenly realized that he had made a mistake and slapped his mouth hard repeatedly: "I'm talking nonsense, I'm talking nonsense."

The trade of Kunlun slaves involves slave trade, which was strictly prohibited in the Ming Dynasty.

But in the unspoken rules of sea trade, if you want to be qualified to follow the Ming Dynasty Navy's waterways, there are additional requirements for the introduction of food and population.

If it fails to meet the requirements, you will encounter various fines from the Customs and Taxation Department.

But this matter cannot be said openly. Although everyone knows who is behind it, if they say it out of their mouths, they will be guilty and severely punished.

In this area, as long as any rumors are spread, it will be strictly investigated by the Public Security Department and the Jinyiwei, and they will often get to the bottom of it.

Even if you are a distinguished person, you will not get any benefit at all, because there are many people who have been dismissed from their posts or even sentenced to hard labor because of this matter.

The lessons learned are there, who dares to discuss this matter.

Besides, where is this place? This is the Nanjing Restaurant in the capital. There are patrolling government officials everywhere. A single mistake can lead to disaster.