When giving advice to a governor, if he wants the other party to at least listen to what he has to say, the only thing he can rely on is his identity as Gao Gong's nephew. All other identities are useless, let alone the newly acquired scholar, even the prince's companion. practical significance.
Only "Gao Gong's nephew" could make Su Yonglu at least have the patience to listen to him.
Gao Pragmatic thought that he was not a military genius, so he was asked to make suggestions for military deployment. Not to mention Su Yonglu, even he himself had little confidence, so he did not plan to make many suggestions on military operations.
What he is good at is, after all, politics. At least he had some experience with maintaining stability in his previous life, so he was relatively confident in doing this.
Gao's pragmatic suggestions were divided into several parts. The first was to explain to Su Yonglu: These refugee rebels are not even called an "army" in themselves. They are just that they really can't survive. A few leaders spontaneously emerged, with a group of leaders. Just help others to grab places where there is food and clothing to make a living.
Su Yonglu basically agreed with this point of view, but he did not say anything. After all, anyone who is not a fool can see this truth - these refugees and rebels did not clamor for proclaiming themselves kings and changing dynasties.
After explaining this problem, Gao Pragmatic began to get down to business. He told Su Yonglu that since these people did not intend to cause chaos, the government did not necessarily have to kill them all. They should use both suppression and appeasement, and appeasement should be greater than suppression.
Su Yonglu frowned and said that it was not that he did not want to appease, but the key was that these people came directly to Guide Mansion. As the governor of a province, he had to eventually appease, at least the prerequisite was that they could not mess up the area under his rule, otherwise Where is the majesty of the imperial court?
In addition, Su Yonglu also said that a bigger problem here is that recruitment requires resettlement, and the imperial court has no money for resettlement, and Henan does not have the ability to do so - these are not hundreds or thousands of people, but hundreds of thousands, or even Even if there are millions of people, the imperial court cannot spend so much money to appease them, let alone Henan?
After all, Su Yonglu was an ally of Gao Dang. Rounding it off, he was also a member of Gao Dang. Therefore, he did not take Gao Pragmatic as an important figure in the next generation of Gao Dang. He told Gao pragmatically sincerely that he I have checked the Henan treasury, and at best I can find four to five million taels of silver for appeasement.
This little money is not enough!
Just imagine, if we average four to five million taels of silver, is it enough for each refugee to receive one tael of silver? Even if one tael of silver is allocated, and even assuming that grain prices in Henan do not fluctuate, this tael of silver will be enough to save food for a month.
You know, they are refugees. They have nothing. If they can survive this month with only one tael of silver, will they continue to drink Fenglayan next month?
Therefore, it is basically useless to directly spend money to appease, unless Henan can spend not four to five million taels in one go, but four to five million taels.
This is nonsense. The imperial court cannot afford so much money, let alone Henan and the Netherlands.
Although Gao pragmatic knew about Henan Fuku's family background for the first time, it was not important. Anyway, it was similar to what he estimated, but it was not enough.
So he was not shocked, let alone panicked, but just asked Su Yonglu calmly, what major projects are currently being done or planned to be done in Henan?
Big work refers to big projects. Of course, generally speaking, those that can be called big projects are basically ordered by the imperial court.
Of course Henan has big industries. It is located in the lower middle reaches of the Yellow River. It would be difficult to imagine without big industries.
What is the full title of Su Yonglu, the governor of Henan?
He was the governor of Henan and other places and also in charge of rivers and military affairs.
It is the duty of the "Governor of Henan" to governor Henan and other places, and his main responsibility is to supervise local officials as the censor of the capital procuratorate. Well, from Gao Pragmatic's point of view, this position is equivalent to the secretary of a certain place in the Red Dynasty.
The admiral of military affairs is a part-time job held by governors everywhere. As the name suggests, he is also in charge of local military affairs. The reason why the governors of the Ming Dynasty are called "military gates", but the governors of the Qing Dynasty do not have this term, is because of this - the Ming Dynasty The governor of the Qing Dynasty also served as the admiral of the province, while the governors of the Qing Dynasty generally did not also serve as the admiral. The admiral was appointed separately, usually by a military general.
What Gao Wuchen is now focused on is the other of his two part-time jobs: managing rivers.
Flood control has always been a very important task in ancient China, and the Ming Dynasty was certainly no exception. There is no need to give more examples of its importance. It can be seen from the fact that "concurrently managing rivers" can be compared with "admiral military affairs", and even placed before admiral military affairs.
Needless to say, is the importance of a job that can be handled personally by the governor of a province? Since it is so important, of course it is not just a matter of name. There must be serious and important things to do.
The big thing is the river construction.
The river is not just the Yellow River, but it does mainly refer to the Yellow River. After all, in ancient China, the rivers in the south were generally relatively honest, and the most dishonest was the Yellow River.
The Yellow River has many harms but only one benefit. Let’s not talk about the benefits. Anyway, the loopholes have been lost. It is estimated that we will have to wait until he takes power in a pragmatic way. The current focus is on harm.
They were already in "hundreds of harms", and of course they had to be managed, so the imperial court established a large number of related official positions. From the river chief who specializes in managing the Yellow River - Youdu Yushi and Prime Minister Hecao, to local officials "also in charge of the river", as well as various local military equipment and political participation "also in charge of the river", "in charge of water conservancy", and even Places such as Pizhou, where the embankments have been constantly bursting recently, have even set up special positions such as "Huai'an Prefecture River Channel Knowledger". It can be said that they are all based on this idea.
Due to its location, Henan has always been a key area for the imperial court - the Central Plains cannot be chaotic! Therefore, Mr. He is often stationed in Henan, and will only go to supervise the situation in person when serious embankment breaches occur.
Therefore, Gao Pragmatic suggested that Su Yonglu should immediately contact the new river chief Pan Jixun to suspend the collection of labor corvees for this year, and at the same time change the direct recruitment to "work instead of relief" and "work instead of care".
To put it simply, these rebellious refugees were arranged to clear the river channels to replace those ordinary people or military households who were originally recruited to serve as corvees.
Gao Pragmatic explained to Su Yonglu that there are at least three benefits of doing so:
First, there are so many people in civil unrest, and in a place like Henan, the heart of the Central Plains, where the population is already dense, it is almost impossible for the land to be left without an owner. How can it be accommodated? With so many refugees left without land and money, chaos will sooner or later arise with nothing to do. They must be given something to do.
The second is that there are several major projects to be carried out in Hezong. Expropriation of corvees is an employer, and using work in lieu of compensation is also an employer. Expropriation of corvees will also lead to the misappropriation of civilian labor and increase the burden on the people. Why not put this group of people who have nothing to do and cannot survive? The refugees who went down climbed up, so that the common people, officials and people could use them.
The third is that these refugees can no longer survive now. Regardless of whether they originally had land or not, whether they had property or not, they are now impoverished. They have nothing left except a small life. They just want a mouthful of food. The corvee also has to take care of the food, and even now many times it is necessary to pay more or less wages. However, using these refugees only needs to take care of the food, and even the wages are saved. It is not only convenient for the government and the people, why not do it?
