Five hundred trade licenses are five hundred large sailing ships!
Nowadays, only a hundred large sailing ships that can travel across the ocean ply the Southeast Sea, and the number has increased fivefold in one go!
The ministers present were all shocked! What does this long live man want to do? Want to develop sea trade? Then make a lot of money? This is a sacrifice of the fundamentals and a violation of the ancestral system!
Zheng Zhilong, Li Guozhu, Han Buan and Hans Putsmann did not expect Zhu Youjian to issue so many trade licenses... This is too much!
If one trade license corresponds to a sailing ship with a load capacity of 300 tons, 500 trade licenses correspond to 500 merchant ships with a total load of 150,000 tons!
The Ming Dynasty's annual exports of silk, cotton, porcelain, tea, ironware, etc. added together amounted to tens of thousands of tons. How could there be a need for 150,000-ton merchant ships?
"Your Majesty," Wang Zaijin, the chief minister of the cabinet, stood up, "Although maritime trade can bring huge profits in gold and silver, the foundation of the country is agriculture after all... Agriculture is the basis and commerce is at the end! But the goods produced by sea trade , except for porcelain, which is fired from soil and has nothing to do with farming, the rest of the products are ultimately produced from field soil. Silk comes from mulberry, cloth comes from cotton, and tea leaves come from trees. However, the fertile land in the world is limited, and the mulberry, cotton, and tea trees planted If there are more, there will be less fields to grow food. Your Majesty, please think twice!"
Zheng Zhilong also went out and said: "Long live my Lord, these five hundred ships are indeed too many... If they are all loaded with silk, porcelain, tea and so on, they won't be able to be sold to the West!"
Zhu Youjian smiled and shook his head, and said to Wang Zaijin: "Old Wangge, do you think that the Celestial Empire is rich in products and has everything, and does not borrow goods from foreign countries to make ends meet?"
"Yes," Wang Zaijin nodded proudly, "The things of the foreigners are indeed dispensable. Even if they are not available in the Celestial Empire, they can be copied by the industrial and commercial people. Didn't we want to buy cannons and muskets from the Westerners earlier? This In the past few years, Xuanfu cannons and Ningyuan cannons have been built. Rumi guns and turtle dove guns can also be produced by ourselves, and there is no need to import them anymore."
Zhu Youjian sighed: "But God doesn't reward me with food! Does Mr. Ge think that I am asking for money by releasing 500 trade certificates? No, what I want from foreigners is firstly not firearms, and secondly not gold and silver, but The foundation for the survival of ordinary people and the foundation of stability in the world! 500 trade certificates are 500 large-scale ships worth several thousand or even ten thousand shi! If they can all carry grain, they can import up to 5 million shi of rice a year. , how many people can survive?
Mr. Bige, you are also the Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, please tell us about the situation of floods, droughts, locusts, and epidemics in various places this year! "
Bi Ge Lao was Bi Ziyan. Because of his meritorious service in fighting off bandits and begging for food, he became the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue and the Bachelor of Dongge University, and became Bi Ge Lao.
However, unlike the problems he encountered when he was in charge of the household department in his previous life, Bi Ziyan's trouble in this life was no longer a lack of money, but a lack of food.
Of course, in the fifth and sixth year of Chongzhen in his previous life, the Great Famine had already begun. However, because the Eastern and Western bandits were too happy, another Denglai Rebellion broke out between the fifth and sixth years of Chongzhen. Therefore, the Ming court had no spare time to take care of the people's food problem...
But now, Donglu's Fatty Ji is busy losing weight and doesn't even save the besieged Jinzhou. Naturally, he has no time to kill people and set fire.
However, the Western Bandit is still squinting and unable to get down from Liupan Mountain, so it won't be enough to cause any serious disaster for the time being.
As for Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming, they are now following "Li Datou" and are popular drinkers in North Korea, so of course they will not rebel.
Because the finances are relatively comfortable, with surpluses for several years in a row, the country is also considered stable, at least there are no big troubles. Therefore, the problem of eating becomes even more prominent.
Since Bi Ziyan took office at the beginning of the year, he has been worried about the famine in Shaanxi and Henan provinces, as well as in the Huaibei region of South Zhili. Although Zhu Youjian has brought millions of people to Sichuan and Huguang to "beg for food", he still can't stand it. Floods, droughts, and locusts are all coming together!
In the fifth year of Chongzhen's reign, floods flooded half of Henan, Huaibei in southern Zhili, and most of Shaanxi. It also delayed the farming season in the disaster areas... The floods in Xuzhou and Huai'an have not receded yet. !
In the sixth year of Chongzhen, the locust plague gnawed away all the crops in northern Shaanxi, and also harmed many places in the Guanzhong Plain. At the same time, droughts returned, and droughts began again in Shaanxi and Henan!
What’s even more frightening is that Huainan and Jiangnan, which have always been relatively prosperous, have also begun to suffer disasters. Sometimes there is drought, and sometimes there are heavy rains causing flash floods... In short, there is one sentence: God does not reward you with food!
In this case, Bige Lao, who also holds the title of Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, is not in less trouble, but in more trouble!
In addition to the mess of disasters and disaster relief, Bi Ziyan was also troubled by Zhu Youjian's idea of linking the number of Jinshi and the number of candidates with tax payments.
The disaster-hit provinces in Shaanxi, Huaibei, and eastern Henan could not pay much tax, but they also wanted their scholars to participate in the imperial examinations—the disaster was not their fault! Why aren't they allowed to take the imperial examination?
The gentry and officials in these places couldn't find Zhu Youjian, so they could only find a few cabinet elders to argue. Bi Ziyan was even more in a dilemma... He was different from other cabinet elders. He couldn't stand with a clear-cut stand. Over there in those affected provinces.
Because the scholar-bureaucrats in the provinces that were not affected by the disaster are all eyeing those places for Jinshi...especially Huguang and Sichuan, which have food, and Nanzhili (Huainan and Jiangnan parts), Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian, Guangdong, etc. The whole country is rushing to pay taxes for the disaster-stricken areas in Shaanxi, Henan, and Huaibei!
Can Bi Ziyan not have a headache? If he supports the scholars in the disaster area, then those provinces (regions) that are not affected by the disaster or are still rich after the disaster will not be willing to pay more taxes.
If he supports those wealthy provinces (regions), wouldn’t the scholars and officials in the disaster area hate him to death?
Moreover, Bi Ziyan is from Shandong, and his hometown has become increasingly drought-prone in recent years. Maybe Shandong will be on the list of disasters this year...
Of course, the biggest headache for Bi Ziyan was that while the total amount of grain was insufficient, Zhu Youjian also required that "disaster preparedness grain" be stored in Xiangyang and Nanyang... In the fifth and sixth years of Chongzhen's reign, It is already a year of disaster, and warehouses should be opened to store grain. How can there be any reason to do the opposite and collect and store grain?
"Your Majesty, there were more disasters last year and this year," Bi Ziyan said, "but the lake is vast and mature, and we can still make up for the gap. If the imperial court can postpone the hoarding of food for famine..."
Being familiar with Huguang is actually the result of Zhu Cihong begging for food in Huguang!
Because Huguang actually has the potential to increase grain production - the number of registered fields in Huguang is as high as 220 million acres! If they are all sown and taken care of carefully, it is possible to receive 400 million shi of millet a year even in a normal year.
This is what Huguang is familiar with and the world is full of it!
In addition, there are still a large number of slopes and mountains in Huguang that have not been cultivated... If some of these lands are planted with sweet potatoes and potatoes, an extra 20 million dan can be harvested a year to satisfy the hunger.
However, Huguang's grain production capacity was not fully utilized during the Chongzhen period of the previous life!
This is because Huguang was harassed and destroyed by the bandits of Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, a large amount of land was abandoned, and the hungry people in the north lacked purchasing power - Huguang has fewer people and more land, so food production is mainly to meet market demand. Without market demand, of course farmers will not So many have been planted!
Therefore, Zhu Youjian's policies of increasing taxes and hoarding grain to prepare for shortages actually greatly stimulated Huguang's grain production.
In addition, after hundreds of thousands of beggars from Shaanxi and Henan were taken in by the 17 state capitals of Huguang, they were all allocated sloping land and received sweet potato and potato seeds, so the sweet potato and potato production in Huguang also increased greatly.
However, for the "Great Ming Dynasty" ten years after Chongzhen, when there was not enough food... there is absolutely no reason why Huguang has more food in the past two years, so there is no need to "cut off grain and rice".
Zhu Youjian shook his head and said: "The way of heaven is unpredictable, so the country cannot live without food every other year... Nowadays, all the country's treasury warehouses have insufficient food and cannot cope with successive years of disasters. And Nanyang, Siam, Annan , Champa, Chenla, Luzon and other places all have fertile soil for growing food... I am developing sea trade not to collect tariffs, but to use our cloth, silk, tea, ironware, and other handicrafts in exchange for their food.
Therefore, my trade certificate cannot be exchanged for money, but half a ship's worth of rice is exchanged for a year's trading rights! If a merchant with a trade certificate can come with a full shipload of rice, I can buy the remaining half shipload of rice at a high price. "
