"Allocate another two million taels of internal funds to the Ministry of Household Affairs for disaster relief! Henan will be exempted from Liaoning rates this year, and Guangyuan will be exempted from taxes for three years. I would rather be poor than suffer the common people!"
Zhu Youxiao pondered for a moment and then replied.
"Your Majesty's benevolence shines upon the sun and the moon!"
Wang Yingjiao breathed a sigh of relief, and then spoke sincerely.
He knew that asking the emperor to pay money would definitely make the emperor unhappy, but he had no choice. When he thought of the people who were affected by the disaster and saw that the current emperor was so generous, he couldn't help but want to ask for some disaster relief money for the people.
So far.
The four ministers, who originally wanted to show the emperor the financial difficulties of the imperial court, did not expect to receive a large wave of internal funds, which greatly improved the financial predicament of their own departments.
After Zhang Heming, the Minister of the Ministry of War, returned to the ministry, Xu Shilin asked him excitedly: "How is it, Great Sima? The four ministers have successively written about the imperial court's financial shortage. Has Your Majesty given up supporting Xiong Tingbi's Liao strategy because of this?"
Zhang Heming laughed: "No, His Majesty directly allocated a large sum of internal funds to the four government agencies. Our Ministry of War received nearly six million taels!"
Xu Shilin was quite disappointed after hearing this and said, "This didn't even make the emperor give up his support for Xiong Tingbi!"
"Why is it that His Majesty is still relatively wealthy now? He has just raided some houses, and the foundation is still there after the temple collects mineral taxes! But it will be hard to say in the future. The emperor probably doesn't have much money to train troops or raise too many factory guards. Eagle dog, I can't come out and say it directly, but you can say hello to me. You should be wiped out. The emperor doesn't have much internal money now, and he doesn't dare to break with us civil servants. Naturally, he won't let the factory guards investigate, otherwise, we civil servants will be forced to do so. He's so anxious. If he has only one card of food from the world, how can he use it to pay the military? How can he still spend millions in internal funds?!"
After Zhang Heming said this angrily, he thought to himself: "The emperor's money is not earned in vain! Anyway, the country does not belong to my family! Who told you, a tyrant, not to take us civil servants seriously! We need our civil servants to govern the country, and we don't give it to them." Can we get some benefits, just some salary?"
"Wan Sheng understands!"
Xu Shilin replied and laughed.
Neither of them took the matter of being greedy for ink too seriously.
After all, corruption among officials in the Ming Dynasty was already a common phenomenon.
What's more, the Ministry of War is in charge of the promotion and selection of military ministers, as well as military pay. Therefore, even if civilian officials at the Ministry of War embezzle military pay, the military attachés below do not dare to cause trouble.
…
"Your Majesty! From what I see, the civil servants of the foreign court have ulterior motives. They obviously want money for the people and the officers and soldiers, but in fact they want to force you to change your mind and make it impossible for you to train as a soldier!"
Wei Zhongxian waited until these ministers left before speaking to Zhu Youxiao to show his loyalty.
Zhu Youxiao said with a serious face: "I heard that the government of Ming Dynasty is very bad now, and the phenomenon of corruption is very serious. Before the military pay leaves the capital, it will be reduced by 20 to 30%, or even reduced by half. They The civil servants call this "floating money". I will issue a decree to strictly prohibit all ministries from floating official silver. Then you will go to the East Factory to investigate carefully. If you find anything, you will confiscate the house and ask for the crime! You can still make money back by then, and even More, and when the time comes, don’t blame me for killing them without teaching them!”
"My slave obeys the order!"
Wei Zhongxian was overjoyed and immediately replied. He naturally knew what the civil servants in the world were like and it was not difficult to find out.
…
"The princes in the court have gone too far. With so much internal money, it is inevitable that major corruption cases will occur in the future. Your Majesty is not without ways to make money now, so naturally he dares to fight with the civil servants in the world!"
After reading the Di newspaper, Sun Chengzong immediately came to the cotton mill and asked his confidant Xu Yue: "What do the Westerners say? How much cotton yarn can they swallow?"
It was Xu Yue who set up a government-run cotton yarn factory in Songjiang and Shanghai for Sun Chengzong.
It was impossible for Sun Chengzong to directly open a cotton yarn factory in Jiangnan.
That would affect his official reputation, and he could easily be accused of taking advantage of the people. It could also easily arouse the vigilance and resentment of local officials and gentry.
Therefore, Sun Chengzong only hired Xu Yue, a member of his clan, as his staff through Xu Guangqi's recommendation, and then Xu Yue set up a government-run cotton yarn mill in Shanghai.
It is claimed that the newly built yarn mill is the Xu family's industry.
The yarn mill is also called Xu's yarn shop.
And because Xu Yue received Xu Guangqi's instructions, he also knew that this was something that would bring wealth to his Xu family, so he was naturally very active.
At this time, after Sun Chengzong asked, Xu Yue quickly replied: "They will take as much yarn as they say we spin."
Sun Chengzong was quite surprised after hearing this: "Really?"
"That's right! You don't know, these Western fans are all very wealthy. They will buy as much cotton yarn, raw silk, porcelain, and tea from the Ming Dynasty as they can. They seem to have endless money to spend. According to the student's inquiry, , they are actually pirates, and they have robbed a lot of gold and silver in places like America! So they have so much money that they have to worry about how to spend it all! Last year, they only bought us three million taels of yarn, which is still a small amount. Over the years, they have It seems that there is no peace, so there are fewer ships coming. In the past few years, the big gentry in the south of the Yangtze River have done more business with them, otherwise we wouldn't have enough money to buy a whip for Mr. Zhang Wenzheng, right?"
After hearing this, Sun Chengzong said: "In that case, your Xu family will recruit another group of yarn workers. They should be honest but not smart and have reliable family backgrounds. It is best to be from your clan. Take confidentiality measures. In addition, don't tell them that they are in To make profits for the imperial court, let’s say that your Xu family wants to expand its industry. Do you estimate how much the profit can be increased?”
“Although there are fewer ships arriving recently than in previous years, students can personally take the ships to Batavia City (Jakarta) and Haojing (Macau). Hongmaofan and Folangji built cities and trade in these two places. There are many Western merchants who receive the goods, but most of us merchants are unwilling to go and wait for them to collect the goods themselves. The main reason is that the road costs are high and they also charge customs duties, but we can go. After all, we have one yarn worker at a time. The cost of operating eight spindles to spin yarn is much lower than that of other cotton yarn merchants. Even if we take the goods here and throw away the customs duties and expenses on the road, we can still make money. By then, we can increase the yarn profit to six million for the court!
However, if our Xu family does not collect local yarn, but only collects cotton yarn from the imperial court and goes to sea, we can increase the profit by another two million taels. If the yarn price is lowered, we can let the Western countries only accept our yarn, which will be even more too much! Fuchen, this is not a student’s lie. In our yarn mill, one person can operate eight spindles at the same time. The cost is one of the eight yarns produced by other yarn merchants. If the price is really reduced, all the yarn profits in the world will belong to the imperial court. ! "
Xu Yue spoke, looking excitedly at the row of spindles spinning rapidly in front of him.
Sun Chengzong knew that Xu Yuoming was saying that the price reduction would bring substantial profits to the court, but in fact he also wanted his Xu family to gain more profits.
But Sun Chengzong did not agree, and only said: "You have to continue collecting local yarn, so as to prevent the small people who make a living from spinning from going bankrupt. Anyway, the Western Fans collect as much as they can, so let's not talk about lowering the yarn price for now. Otherwise, even though your Xu family is a prominent local family, if other gentry are really deprived of their income, they will not tolerate your Xu family! Don’t kill them all unless absolutely necessary."
Xu Yue nodded: "What Fuchen said is true, students should remember it!"
Then, Xu Yue asked: "Do you want the student to have someone allocate more of the money allocated to the imperial court, that is, to your Majesty, and transfer it to your name, Fuchen, in the name of running a cotton mill?"
