"My lord, are you kidding me?"
Jabs looked at Wu Sangui with surprise.
Wu Sangui sighed: "To be honest, I, the King of Pingxi, have suffered a loss... Not counting my old savings, I still owe a lot of loan sharks! What else do you mean? What do you think I am trying to do? ?My sister is the queen, my brothers and father are both Dukes, and I am also a Duke. Moreover, I also have the merits of being a defeated bandit and offering sacrifices to Gansu and Shaanxi. After handing over military power and entering the court, are you afraid that you will not have glory and wealth? Why bother to fill in this in Gansu and Shaanxi? Bottomless pit?”
He really wants to run away to Nanjing... He has too much debt and can't even pay it off! Moreover, the 330,000 households below are too difficult to take care of, and every one of them is just like their ancestors. When Wu Sangui defected to the Ming Dynasty before, he had already borrowed a lot of loan sharks to make up for the shortfalls of thousands of households below.
But this year there is another drought, and many thousands of households have reported no harvest! It's up to him, a big warlord, to find a way to help...and what can Wu Sangui do? Shouldn't you continue to borrow money from loan sharks?
Seeing that his debts were increasing, Wu Sangui was really exhausted mentally and physically, and even thought of running away to Nanjing.
Oh, it can’t be considered running away. By handing back the books, he was handing over the land and population to the imperial court!
In this way, the loan sharks he was carrying could also be transferred out. His loan sharking was not due to personal squandering or gambling, it was all due to being the damn king of the northwest. It was a "vassal debt", not a personal debt.
He thought that as long as the feudal clan was handed over, the feudal debt would be handed over naturally.
Even if he "cleans up and leaves home", is he still afraid that he will not be rich and prosperous after going to Nanjing? He is a hero of the Ming Dynasty! Without him opening Shanhaiguan to lure the Qing soldiers in, Zhu Cixiang would have been doomed even if he had three heads and six arms. Without the Qing soldiers coming in, Li Zicheng would have secured his position as the Dragon Court in Beijing!
At that time, some people will chop off Zhu Cixiang’s head to claim credit from Li Zicheng...
And now he has returned to the Ming Dynasty with the territory of Gansu and Shaanxi!
If you add two great merits together, are you afraid that you will lose glory and wealth?
His demands were not high. As long as Zhu Cihong could reward him with a big house, tens of thousands of acres of land, one hundred thousand and two hundred thousand taels of silver, and a high-ranking official who took money for nothing and did not work, he would Satisfied!
Then, wouldn't it be nice to eat, drink, have fun, and do some business with Chen Yuanyuan?
After listening to Wu Sangui's words and looking at Wu Sangui's expression, Jabs felt that the Duke really wanted to quit - this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! As long as the emperor is determined not to shoulder the loan sharks for him, he can force Wu Sangui to become a wealthy prince. Most of the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces have returned to the hands of the imperial court...
...
The news that Wu Sangui attempted to evade debts and dump the financial black hole of Gansu and Shaanxi to the Ming court was quickly sent through Jinyiwei's network to Zhu Cihong, who was about to leave Nanjing and head west to Wuhan.
"Your Majesty, good news! The Duke of Jin is willing to return the edition!"
This news was brought to Dongnuan Pavilion of Fengtian Palace by the jubilant Zhu Chunjie himself. When he arrived at Dongnuan Pavilion, Zhu Cihong was discussing the Huanghuai project with important ministers of the two governments.
The Yellow-Huaihe River Project was proposed by Fang Gongyue, the Governor of the River Channel. The specific idea was to "abolish the Cao River, regulate the Yellow River, and protect the Huaihe River" - the three river management projects of the Yellow River, Huaihe River, and Yun River were actually integrated. After the Yellow River flowed south to capture the Huaihe River, the Ming Dynasty Both the Qing Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty faced the dilemma of "protecting the canal" and "protecting the Huaihe River".
To protect the canal, we cannot manually dig the Yellow River's entry into the sea north of the Huaihe River, or even dig a flood discharge channel on the east (north) bank of the Yellow River to prevent the Yellow River water from destroying the canal. Under the Yellow River control idea of "protecting canals first", the Huaihe River will inevitably become a victim - the Yellow River water carrying a large amount of sediment can only rush into the Huaihe River! And when the flood peaks of the Yellow River and the Huaihe River come at the same time, we can only force the water into the Huaihe River and protect the water transportation at all costs. After the Ming Dynasty moved the capital to Beijing, because water transportation had to be maintained at all costs, the number of floods in the Huaihe River increased significantly, almost once every two to three years!
In other words, although the rice transported to Beijing every year is only more than 4 million shi, the rice lost due to the flooding of the Huaihe River averages at least several 4 million shi per year...
Now that Beijing is no longer in the hands of the Ming Dynasty, and Zhu Cixi no longer regards Beijing as the capital, there is no need to implement the flood control strategy of protecting the canal and abandoning the Huai River, and there is no way to abandon the Huai River again - because the Ming Dynasty is now crowded and the land is tight. The food supply is unprecedentedly tight. Once a major flood occurs in the Huaihe River in the 21st year of Wanli, causing Huai'an and Yangzhou to lose their harvests, the trouble will be huge. At least tens of millions of white rice will be lost... .
By then the throne under Emperor Zhu’s butt will be shaken!
Therefore, the policy of abandoning the canal was determined, and a plan was put forward to dig a 180-mile-long Yellow River channel into the sea in Suqian and Shuyang counties.
This is not a canal, but a large river that allows the water of the Yellow River to rush into the sea. It took hundreds of thousands of people and several years to complete.
Now that Zhu Cihong has abolished corvee labor, it has been converted into land tax at a discount, so hundreds of thousands of laborers digging rivers and building dams can only be recruited through hired labor. Although according to Fang Gongyue's plan, it is planned to employ laborers in their spare time, and to hire laborers from the three nearby prefectures of Huai'an, Haizhou, and Yangzhou, which are suffering from the flooding of the Huaihe River, the cost of the entire project will still be as high as millions of dan ( rice).
The finances in the first year of Hongxing were not enough to support such a major project. However, in the second year of Hongxing, the five-year tax exemption in four provinces including Jiangnan, Jiangbei, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang ended, and more than 100 million acres of private land began to pay "two buckets of rice." After the "Two Dou of Rice" field tax planned to be implemented by the Ming Dynasty in the second year of Hongxing will be the highest standard, applicable to high-quality paddy fields, and paid by farmers without any additional fees, the Ming Dynasty will be able to start comprehensive The great work of regulating the Huang and Huai rivers has begun.
In addition to excavating a new channel for the Yellow River to enter the sea, there are also projects to expand the Hongze Lake flood storage area and build additional dykes, move the ancestors' tombs, build more dykes on the Huaihe River, build more dykes in the Xuzhou section of the Yellow River, and build new channels for the Huaihe River to enter the sea, etc. .
If all the projects are completed, it will not only ensure the safety of the Huaihe River in the next decades or even hundreds of years, but also ensure that the Huaihe River will not suffer from serious flooding (Hongze Lake flood storage) when the Beiqing people dug the Yellow River to lead the troops with water. District expansion is to prevent this trick).
It is no exaggeration to say that this series of Huaihe River control projects are directly related to the survival and safety of the Ming Dynasty, and it is the most important national policy!
Before the Huaihe River project was completed, Emperor Zhu had no extra financial resources to fill the bottomless pit in Shaanxi and Gansu!
Now that Zhu Cihong had listened to Zhu Chunjie's report, he just smiled faintly: "Wu Sangui still wants to escape his debts... No way! He and the acting king must block the holes in Shaanxi and Gansu!"
This is not a loan shark worth millions...the holes in Gansu and Shaanxi are huge! Wu Sangui and Dai Fan had so many troops and so many heroes, so how much did Zhu Cixang get? Moreover, the local governments of Gansu and Shaanxi cannot collect taxes, and they cannot even collect official land and military land. Isn’t it just a big black hole that cannot be filled?
If you really memorize it, how can you do it without tens of millions a year?
"Your Majesty, the Duke of Jin is willing to return the edition!" Chief Assistant Wei Zaode thought that Zhu Cihong did not understand what Zhu Chunjie said, so he quickly reminded him.
Wu Xiang, Minister of the Ministry of War, was also stunned. He finally reacted and stammered: "Your Majesty, Quanzi, Quanzi is not trying to escape from debts... Quanzi is loyal to the Ming Dynasty and to His Majesty!"
Zhu Cixiang smiled and said: "Old Taishan, I know that my eldest uncle is a loyal minister... but a loyal minister can't run away just because he owes a debt!"
"Your Majesty, Sangui owes a debt to the country...and he really can't pay it back!"
Zhu Cixiang smiled: "It doesn't matter, I have sent Huang Jiang (Soy Sauce Huang), the general manager of Maritime Bank, and Su Sheng (Su Laomi), the general manager of Salt Mercantile Bank, to Wuhan. They will help the uncle solve his debt problem.
As for the Gansu and Shaanxi vassal towns... vassal towns are not necessarily separatist and can also be loyal to the court! I trust my uncle and the king, so I will set up vassal towns in Gansu and Shaanxi to guard the place. "
