Helping Cen Ling keep the matter a secret, Gao Pragmatic finally agreed. Although he still had a lot of doubts about whether Mo Chao was the murderer who poisoned Zhang Ren, but in this situation, he could have a target of suspicion. It's better than not even being able to identify the suspect.
As for whether the internal affairs of Sicheng are straight or not, Gao Pragmatic generally believes what Cen Ling said. At least one thing is that they did send Cen Yunhan to Guilin and handed over such a large and important proton. If there is no problem behind it, it would be unjustifiable. .
But believe it, believe it, whether you want to help, or how to help, there is no need to worry about this for the time being. When Gao Pragmatic does things, his conscience only has one basic point, which is whether it is beneficial to the continuation of the Han Dynasty. At other times, his conscience plays a far less important role than his reason.
The so-called rationality, to put it bluntly, is about interests. The only difference from ordinary people is that Gao Pragmatic talks about interests and now basically no longer talks about money. At least in Guangxi today, he doesn't think anyone is worthy of talking about money with him.
Although "Si Bo Tian Yang, Liang Guang Cen Huang" has a famous reputation, his reputation does not depend on his wealth. In terms of wealth, the Duke of Wei in Nanjing and his family might be able to beat these four major chieftain families. Is that useful?
Leaving aside the two families in Guizhou, let’s talk about the Cen and Huang families. According to what Huang Zhiting gave him, if these two families can unite and ignore the consequences, they can pull out 100,000 wolves in at most two months. When the soldiers come, they are all mountain elites who are serious enough to fight. How can the Duke of Wei compare with this?
However, the Cen and Huang family are so powerful. If we talk about money... the imperial court's annual tribute requirement for Siming Mansion is only 795 taels of silver, while the requirement for Sicheng Prefecture is 1,040 taels. Even if this is an indicator that does not include other "local specialties", it can still be seen that their two families are in financial embarrassment.
Even if the annual income of the Cen and Huang families were added together, it would not matter in Gao Pragmatic's eyes. Even a bit exaggerated, Gao Pragmatic suspected that if all the chieftains of Guangxi were put together, the tribute paid by them in a year might be only more than 10,000 taels - at most 20,000.
Twenty thousand taels, haha... Tianjin Port does not count the revenue of the fleet. Just sitting in the port area collecting rent, it can earn almost 30,000 taels in two months. After excluding various expenses, it is still a little redundant. Calculating a net profit of 10,000 taels per month is no problem at all.
Twenty thousand taels of silver is nothing more than a two-month transaction of sitting on land in Tianjin Port and collecting rent.
Therefore, Gao Pragmatic would not consider taking money from the chieftain as a benefit at all. The most valuable capital the chieftain has on hand is actually two things: land and wolf soldiers.
The land is of little use, at least to Gao Pragmatic. Not to mention that Gao Pragmatic basically doesn't know what advantageous minerals there are in western Guangxi and southern Guangxi. Even if he remembers, he has no interest in mining because safety cannot be guaranteed. Secondly, the transportation is not very convenient.
Relatively speaking, Guinan, where the Huang family is located, is a little better. If you really want to have any advantageous products, you can transport them to Qinzhou via the Mingjiang River, and then transport them to Guangzhou by sea. This can be linked to the highly pragmatic private port of Guangzhou. But he couldn't guarantee that the Huang family would cooperate with him honestly, so he didn't need to think about it for the time being.
As for the land of the Cen family in western Guangxi, although it can be connected to Qinzhou or even directly to Guangzhou through the Zuojiang-Pearl River water system, that has nothing to do with Gao Pragmatic. He has not traveled through time to become the chieftain of the Cen family, so he cannot help them make money. way.
From this point of view, the only place where Cen might be useful to Gao Pragmatic is the wolf soldiers. But the wolf soldier's strength is fighting, being pragmatic and not rebellious. What can the wolf soldier do to help him?
Therefore, the patrol system still has its advantages. People like Gao Pragmatic, who are involved in a wide range of industries, can't find a foothold to form an interest alliance with the Guangxi local government.
Hey, wait, wait, wait...interest alliance? A foothold?
Gao Pangshi, who had just sent Cen Ling away, suddenly slapped his forehead and said to himself: "How could I forget all my best skills! Although the chieftain was not very obedient, that was because the Ming Dynasty treated the chieftain so well. It is just a source of orthodox name. Not only can the chieftain himself not benefit from the Ming Dynasty, but he has to make a sum of money every year, and even has to deal with the imperial conscription at any time. To this extent, the chieftain not only did the Ming Dynasty His younger brother has to help the Ming Dynasty with work and even pay tribute... So he is obedient just because he can't beat 'big brother', and he is disobedient just because 'big brother' wants too much?"
Gao's pragmatic thoughts suddenly came to life, and he thought to himself: So, can I rely on interests to win over him, and even have a certain degree of control over the chieftain to some extent?
It's easy to win over, since they are poor anyway, and I'm not short of money... But just giving money gives me so much control? Unless they can control their economic lifeline.
But judging from the current productivity of Liangjiang Tusi, their economic lifeline is nothing more than farming, and most of them are mountain fields. I am not interested in buying them if they let me buy them. This idea will definitely not work.
So, what if we create a new economic lifeline for them, make this lifeline even more important than farming, and then control this lifeline?
In theory, it should be feasible. The key question is what kind of "new lifeline" can replace farming and can be controlled by me...
The so-called control of the economy, in this era, is nothing more than two ideas: controlling production or controlling circulation.
Well, I'm afraid it's a bit difficult to control production. What if the chieftain doesn't obey the orders, and thousands or even tens of thousands of wolf soldiers come over to control the production? Even if I set up mine protection teams and factory protection teams like in the northern "base area", I'm afraid it won't be very effective.
After all, the targets that these mining and factory protection teams have to guard against in the north are mainly bandits, bandits, thieves, and the like, and they are not government troops. Even in a large mining area or factory area, one or two thousand mine and factory protection teams are enough. , but if it were replaced by Tusi Wolf Soldiers, they would be tens of thousands if they tried hard, and I am afraid that the mine protection team would not be able to handle them.
From this point of view, we can only consider controlling circulation.
Whether it is western Guangxi or southern Guangxi, it is characterized by mountainous terrain. If circulation relies on people carrying horses, tofu can be sold for the price of meat. Unless you open a soap factory yourself, how can you guarantee profits? Without profit, how can we talk about a new lifeline? But soap factories can’t open in Guangxi. With Guangxi’s consumption power, how many soaps can it sell? Even if we want to open it, we can only open it to Guangzhou.
Therefore, considering the geographical environment of Guangxi, the so-called control of circulation must be based on the control of water trade routes. Because the characteristics of Guangxi's water system are very clear, that is, except for several rivers in Guilin that flow north to Huguang, almost all the others flow east.
There are two ideas for heading east. One is that no matter where you come from, you will eventually go to Guangdong via the Pearl River. Another idea is to go to Qinzhou first and then take the sea route.
We can put aside the issue of traveling along the Pearl River for a moment. As long as you have money, you can just build a large fleet to "compete with the people for profit." He is pragmatic and not an emperor, but he is not afraid of others saying that he competes with the people for profit. Besides, people who can say this are in the same category as him.
This is to control circulation by controlling transportation capacity. In fact, there is another way. As long as the Xunzhou Prefecture, the convergence point of the left and right rivers in Guangxi, is controlled, the rivers leading to Guangdong by water will be locked.
But this requires official support. It was not a problem when Gao Jingqing was working as a patrol inspector in Guangxi, but the patrol inspector generally did not stay in office for a long time. It would be difficult to say after he left. Therefore, although this method is hard-core, it is The priority comes after controlling the fleet.
The real problem is Qinzhou. Qinzhou is under the rule of Lianzhou Prefecture, and in the Ming Dynasty, the entire Lianzhou Prefecture was administratively owned by Guangdong and not Guangxi. This meant that the highly pragmatic Guangxi inspector had no control over Qinzhou. And for this reason, Guangxi is now a serious inland province.
Transferring Lianzhou Prefecture directly to Guangxi is the best way to deal with it. Of course, Gao Pragmatic immediately thought of this. However, this matter is a bit troublesome. Even with the energy of the high-level officials in the imperial court, it is uncertain whether they can succeed in Chengdu.
In fact, during the Yuan Dynasty, Lianzhou was returned to Guangxi, and this administrative division was continued when the Ming Dynasty was first founded. However, the good times did not last long, and Japanese pirates flourished, causing unrest along the coast during the Hongwu Dynasty.
At this time, since there were only Lianzhou and Qinzhou in the coastal part of Guangxi, the imperial court downgraded Qinzhou and assigned it to Lianzhou, and then packaged Lianzhou as a whole and assigned it to Guangdong. The reason was that Guangdong's navy was strong and it was assigned to Guangdong. After that, the actions to prevent and eliminate Japanese pirates can be unified.
From then on, Guangxi said goodbye to the sea.
However, the situation after Lianzhou Prefecture was transferred to Guangdong was not good, because for Guangdong, this place is the "extreme west of Guangdong". It is a separate piece of land, not an enclave but an enclave. It has never been very valued.
This has caused Lianzhou to not only lag behind in economic development, but also have a smaller and smaller population. Moreover, the coastal defense is not very reliable. It is still attacked by Japanese pirates when it should be attacked. Although the Guangdong Navy is relatively strong, it can Could it be that he ignores the "core interests" near Guangzhou and keeps coming to your corner of Lianzhou?
Therefore, there were voices in the court demanding that Lianzhou Prefecture be reassigned to Guangxi. But there are two reasons why this sound has not become mainstream.
The first reason is that Lianzhou produces salt and pearls and is known as "Jinshan Zhuhai, the Southern Treasury of the Emperor". The imperial court established the "Guangdong Haibei Salt Class Promotion Department" and the "Department Patrol Sea Road Rectification Admiral Lei Lian Zhuchi Deputy Envoy" in Lianzhou Prefecture. Among them, the Salt Class Promotion Department had jurisdiction over fifteen salt fields, including the one belonging to Lianzhou Prefecture. There are three places.
This means that if Lianzhou is to be transferred back to Guangxi, not only the corresponding administrative settings will be changed, but also the interests of Guangdong will be infringed upon - well, mainly the interests of Guangdong officials.
On the other hand, Gao Pragmatic is more confident about solving the Zhuchi problem. Because pearl fishing is a very dangerous occupation, people often suffer death or injury while fishing for pearls. Sometimes, when pearl fishing is not suitable, they are forced to fish for pearls because of the needs of the court, which leads to death and injury. Therefore, it has attracted the attention of local officials many times, and the Shangshu imperial court requested rectification. Of course, the local officials mainly requested the imperial court to remove the "officials guarding Zhuchi" and suggested that it be managed by both military and military personnel. The reason is self-evident. Now that there is a "deputy envoy Zhuchi who patrols the sea routes and rectifies admiral Lei Lian", it can be seen that civilian officials are still more powerful.
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