"Your Majesty, Wu Sangui has crossed the Yangtze River!"
When the news that Wu Sangui had crossed the Yangtze River reached Zhu Heji, it was already late June in the second year of the reign of King Ding of the Ming Dynasty. It's almost July - this is the seventh month of the lunar calendar, which means it's August when the autumn wind is approaching.
When the news came that day, the Sage Prince was presiding over a small military meeting at the Military Academy on Huangpu Island.
The construction of the Whampoa Military Academy started when Zhu Heji just became the lord of Guangzhou. It took almost a year, and now the first phase of the project has been completed - there are no high-rise buildings, just 20 or 30 rows of very simple Chinese style brick houses, a large school field, a shooting range, a mound of fortress, and a dock.
In addition, a shipyard, an iron factory, and a coking plant were also built together... They were all experimental factories, not large in scale.
The arrival of the military academy and three small factories still brought a lot of popularity to the originally deserted Huangpu Island.
There are more than 2,000 teachers and students in the military academy plus instructors. The number of craftsmen and small workers in the three factories totals 1,200. In addition, hundreds of craftsmen and military officers' families also came to the island.
These people gathered on the east island of Huangpu Island, forming a "military town" around the military academy. Since the end of the Ten Thousand Nationalities Conference, Zhu Heqi spent ten days every month on Huangpu Island, and the remaining two Ten days were spent in Guangzhou City and Haizhu Island.
During the ten days in Guangzhou, the main work was to continue to promote the "Guangdong Land Reform", manage the business of the North Factory, the Inner Factory, and the South Factory, supervise the "major infrastructure" of Guangfu, and manage the finances of the Guangdong court.
Among them, finance is the most important thing...With money, other things will be easier to handle!
Nowadays, the finances of the Guangdong imperial court are mainly supported by three sources. One is trade. Guangdong and Fujian have been maritime trade centers for thousands of years. Even after the chaos in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, sugar, ironware, and porcelain are still the three major sources of big money. Products, tea has become popular again in recent years (brought by the British East India Company), coupled with Zhu Heji's sugar cane wine, high-quality granular black powder and perfume, a total of seven high value-added fists have been formed. product!
Driven by these seven major products, Guangzhou, which reopened to the outside world, soon welcomed waves of foreign businessmen and quickly restored its former leading position in international trade. However, the prosperity of trade does not mean a sudden increase in tax revenue, otherwise the Ming Dynasty would not be so poor!
Therefore, Zhu Heji had to spend a lot of energy on "supervising taxes"... and his ideas for collecting taxes were "simple" and "collecting everything".
The so-called "simple" means to simplify the taxation method as much as possible - it is too complicated for people below to make money, and Zhu Heji does not have so many high-quality cadres.
Therefore, his main method of collecting commercial taxes is to set up tax cards on transportation thoroughfares, measure the length and width of vehicles and ships, and charge a fixed tax based on the length and width of vehicles and ships - just to pay for the road, he is good at it!
And "collect everything" means that no matter whose car or boat it is, tax must be paid!
Even if King Zhu Tian, the supervisor of the country, goes on a tour, as long as he takes a car or a boat, he must pay taxes according to law! Since the state cannot be exempted from prison, others can only pay the money obediently.
Of course, this kind of "travel money" tax is not heavy, and there are not many tax cards and customs, so it will not have any impact on domestic and foreign trade.
But because of the broad tax base and low tax costs, the total revenue is considerable!
In addition to the "travel money" related to trade, another major financial source of the Guangzhou court was "protection money", which was to levy grain and recruit troops based on the land and population of each clan below.
In addition, private property on "official and private land" in Guangdong must also pay corresponding "protection fees."
When collecting "protection fees", we also adhere to the two principles of "simplicity" and "collection"!
No one can avoid paying "protection fees". Even the private property owned by King Zhu Tianwang, Zhu Heji and his son, and the "Chaozhou Zhu Family" headed by them, who collected a group of descendants of Zhu Ming, also have to pay "protection fees". Protection fees".
Also because of the two principles of "simplicity" and "collection", although the rate of "protection fee" is not high, the total income is also quite high.
The third largest source of income for the Guangzhou imperial court came from government property and self-operation—mainly the rent from government-owned land and the profits from the five major factories in the east, south, west, north, and inside. It was more difficult to raise this part of the money. Zhu Heji spent a lot of energy on this aspect and specially formed a management team with Eunuch Pang, Little Eunuch, Si Wenbai, Erye Yu and Da Boling as the core.
During those ten days on Haizhu Island, Zhu Heji's main task was education. The large-scale Cidu Temple on Haizhu Island has now been transformed into a natural university hall. However, there are no students in this school, just a group of teachers undergoing training.
Zhu Shunshui, Gu Yanwu, Qu Dajun, Qu Dajun's son Qu Huajie, and Macau Bishop Luo Wenzao formed the management of the school. In addition, there are more than a dozen "real academic masters" selected through last year's imperial examinations to form the teaching group.
After Zhu Heqi arrived on Haizhu Island, his first task was to teach these people and guide them to become self-study; secondly, with the help of these people, he compiled teaching materials on original Confucianism, arithmetic, natural magic and other subjects; and finally, he made His "spell experiment"...
During the ten days on Huangpu Island, Zhu Heji, in addition to dealing with some daily government affairs sent by the Zhongshu Province, focused on the education and training of the military academy, as well as the testing of new weapons. Sometimes he would discuss military reforms or plans for the Northern Expedition with military advisers such as Zhuge Military Advisor, Yang Qilong, Qiu Rong, Chen Shangchuan, and Wu Sanwei.
To be honest, Zhu Heji's power is still in its infancy. Although it has risen rapidly, the foundation has not been laid yet. He does not have a base that has been in operation for many years like Wu Sangui and Geng Jingzhong, and he does not have a huge and intricate military and political group.
The capital he used to start his business was just a small "rebel group". To put it more harshly, it was just a group of bandits with a little bit of idealism. Later, after taking Jieyang County, the rebellion was on track, and more scholars began to join. The finances were also a little better, so Zhu Heji could start to open schools, factories, establish systems, and build up the military. Although I had a lot of "golden fingers", I did get help from a few capable people. But after all, the development time was too short and accumulation was insufficient. It can be said that it was a difficult start.
After conquering Macau and Guangzhou, Zhu Heji's career entered the take-off stage. With the population of Guangfu and the wealth plundered from the Macau Catholic Church and the Shangfan Palace in Guangzhou, as well as Guangfu, a trading center that was already rich in wealth. Zhu Heji could finally let go and do something big.
However, there were so many things he wanted to accomplish. After the stalls were opened one by one, Zhu Heji became a little too busy and felt that there was not enough time every day.
What made him a little speechless was that he wished he had thirteen hours a day to work hard. But the people below all looked very leisurely. Even people like Zhuge Sanhe, Yang Qilong, and Wu Sanwei were slow to do things.
Even if Sage Zhu gave them "promotions and salary increases" one by one, the salaries of these hard-working and simple former Confucian officials increased from dozens of taels per month to 100 to 500 taels per month. Each of them has a big house in Guangzhou Fucheng, but the rhythm of this group of people still cannot be fast.
Who made some people accustomed to the slow pace of the agricultural society, while Zhu Heji himself was accustomed to the fast pace of the information society?
Of course, this "slow pace" is just Zhu Heji's own opinion. No matter whether they are high-ranking officials, middle-level or grass-roots officials, they all feel as if they are so busy these days.
And when these people heard the news that Wu Sangui had crossed the Yangtze River, they immediately became more motivated, and someone immediately came to give advice to Crown Prince Zhu.
"My lord, Wu Sangui crossed the river with all his strength, and he will definitely take advantage of his high morale to seek a decisive battle with Xuanye. Although Xuanye has far more soldiers, horses, money and food than Wu Sangui, his Eight Banners soldiers are earlier It will be weakened, and it is impossible for the new coated slave army to be trained immediately...The situation is very favorable to Wu Sangui!"
The speaker was Yang Qilong, who was in charge of intelligence in the Military Advisor's Office and was Zhu Heji's "strategic advisor." His tactical abilities were not as good as those of Zhuge Sanhe, but in terms of grand strategy, he was better than that Zhuge Military Advisor.
"Commander Yang," Zhu Heji also seemed a little worried, "what should we do..."
He didn't finish what he said, but Yang Qilong and the smart people present understood what he meant "how to do something bad." How can one be so great and upright when conquering the world? It's normal for something to break.
"Master," Zhuge Sanhe, who initially regarded himself as a "genius strategist" but developed into a general after a while, still shook the "strategist fan" and analyzed with a frown, "Although Wu Sangui has passed Yangtze River, but his goal is still Wuchang and Hanyang. Only by capturing these two mansions can he control the Yangtze River waterway and Hanshui waterway, and then go north to Xiangyang and east to Jinling.
The experts under Kangxi must also understand this truth. Therefore, Kangxi would not easily transfer troops from Wuchang and Hanyang, and Wu Sangui would definitely try his best to prompt Kangxi to transfer troops from Wuchang and Hanyang! If we want to do something bad, we can start from this aspect..."
The direction has been found!
But how to make it worse?
Zhu Heji knew that there was not enough evil in the belly of this Zhuge military advisor... In today's Guangzhou court, the worst person must be Yang Qilong.
Thinking of this, he turned his attention to Military Advisor Yang Er!
