In the next two days, Huang Zhiting began to seize the time to discuss with the big businessmen in Liaodong about the purchase of ginseng, velvet antler and other precious Chinese medicinal materials and the sale of Annan rice. Of course, Jinghua was indispensable here, and even acted as a credit guarantee, etc., but this These are all details, so I won’t go into details here.
Gao Pragmatic is also very busy here. In addition to the planned "heavy industry" development in Liaodong, which to him seems to only require copying the Kaiping model, agricultural issues can make him worry about life for a long time.
At this moment, he really realized the greatness of Mr. Yuan in later generations. At present, the output per acre of the entire country of Ming Dynasty is high in the world. Unfortunately, it is still not enough under various natural disasters. To describe Liaodong as "not enough" is really an understatement.
I didn’t know it when I wasn’t the governor, but after I became the governor, Gao pragmatically called on a group of financial talents brought by Gao Guoyan himself to do the calculations, and found that the annual grain shortage in Liaodong was as high as more than 53 million kilograms. In addition to Although part of the salt in Liaodong could be exchanged from the mainland, the final deficit was still about 40 million kilograms.
Forty million kilograms, that’s 20 million kilograms, equivalent to 20,000 tons. After converting it into tons, it doesn’t seem like a large amount.
However, the actual population of Liaodong may only be four million, and not all of these four million are Han people. According to the official rough estimate of the Ming Dynasty - which is only a rough estimate - Han people account for "seventeen", which is 70% , that is less than three million.
Calculated at three million, this gap of 40 million kilograms is equivalent to more than 13 kilograms of food shortage per person per year. It is indeed not much, but there is a very critical issue here - do you think that people in this era every Can you have rice with every meal?
Of course it's okay to be highly pragmatic, but for the civilians in Liaodong to have such treatment, this is a typical example of people who haven't woken up.
The food eaten by ordinary people in Liaodong is really complicated. All kinds of coarse grains are already considered, and wild vegetables are also good. All kinds of poisonous grasses, roots, and barks are all on the plate. As for hunting, this is no joke, it requires a lot of ability, and it is not a drought or flood guaranteed harvest project, so it only depends on your appearance.
Fishing is of course an option, but it also requires skills and tools, and even fishing is not that simple - you might as well do more work if you have the spare time! However, since the productivity in Liaodong is not high, the price of silver is obviously high. A day laborer in the capital can earn more than two taels of silver per month, but in Liaodong it is almost half. This is the gap.
As for eating rice for every meal, it means that this family either has good business management and a strong family background, or at least has a master in the family. It is difficult for a scholar to do this. Li Chengliang was a scholar in his early years, but he was too poor to even go to the capital. Even if you go through the formalities and inherit your father's position, you can't do it. This is proof.
Therefore, under this situation, the average grain shortage of the population in Liaodong is still more than 13 kilograms, which is very unscientific.
Gao pragmatically calculated the number of acres of fields and the average yield per mu, but the final results were always inconsistent. There was obviously a big omission between the two.
This omission could only be due to a few individuals occupying too many fields, and these fields were concealed through means such as dedications and deceptive mailings.
Damn it, no wonder so many hidden fields were found in Shandong during the land clearing. Now it seems that there is still a problem with the clearing of land in Shandong. At least the army must not have found out the land.
And Liaodong is a "military-controlled area". Generally speaking, officials and officials who are exiled have no interest in buying large properties in Liaodong. At most, officials who are originally from Liaodong will make a fortune from it.
A pragmatic person can imagine it with his toes. Those who really eat meat and drink blood are probably military generals. Many officers and generals must have a large number of unregistered hidden fields under their names. As for the largest family among them, there is no need to think too much. It must be the Li Chengliang family.
The world is as dark as crows. Li Chengliang cannot be blamed solely for being greedy. This is something Gao Xiangpang understands clearly. However, the situation in Liaodong only looks a lot better from the outside. If it is such a mess on the inside, something will happen sooner or later.
In the future, when the "Corn Plan" is completed, it will certainly be able to solve part of the problem, but it will only treat the symptoms and not the root cause. If we want to cure the root cause, we have to think of ways from the system.
It's hard to say how much land Li Chengliang occupied, how much of it was military land, how much of it was "illegal gains", and how much of it was still in a gray area.
But from Gao Pragmatic's point of view, he can tolerate those in the gray area for the time being, such as the occupation of military land and completely illegal gains, but he will definitely not be able to tolerate these things. He must find a way to change these things during his term, even if his term is not enough. There is no way to do it completely, and we have to find a way.
During these two days, most of his energy was devoted to thinking about land and food issues.
The remaining small part is to consider Annan's support for the war in Myanmar.
In fact, if Annan supports the war against Myanmar, Annan can handle most of it himself. Nearly two years have passed, and the military-industrial departments of Beijing and Hua in Annam have begun to take shape, and the output of Ha Tinh Iron Mine has kept up. If we really want to talk about the military problem, there is actually only one: Annam has no gunpowder output.
To make gunpowder, you must first have sulfur and saltpeter. However, Gao Pragmatic's geographical level is limited. He doesn't know where the two brothers dug in Annan. He didn't ask Liu Xin last time, so Annan doesn't have the ability to produce gunpowder at all now.
The current main production area of sulfur in the Ming Dynasty is Sichuan, and there is also some in Gansu. The Ming court still has relatively strict control over gunpowder, and Gao Pragmatic does not intend to violate the ban, so the gunpowder exported to Annan is relatively limited.
Of course, this in itself is also in line with Gao Pragmatic's idea of controlling Annan - it is impossible for him to have the ability to produce and use firearms in one stop. Otherwise, with Gao Pragmatic's status, this problem is not unsolvable.
The court wanted to coax and Annan wanted to control, so Gao Pragmatic thought of another way: develop Taiwan Island.
Although Taiwan is now a deserted island and is not rich in resources, its sulfur reserves alone are relatively reliable. The sulfur in the northern volcanic area is at least high enough to be used for hundreds of years.
He had told Huang Zhiting before that the need for food in Taiwan might increase year by year. It was for this reason that after all, there had to be people to develop Taiwan. The more immigrants there were, the bigger the food gap would be - these people would definitely not be able to be self-sufficient in food in the first place. .
Sulfur is done, and saltpeter is available. The production areas of saltpeter and sulfur in the Ming Dynasty are very close, especially Sichuan, which is the main force, and the other is the Longxi region, which are both the production areas of excavated saltpeter ores.
Apart from mining, the only thing left is the "dirty method": boiling saltpeter from the toilet. Of course, the Ming Dynasty was not like King Charles I of England, who ordered all toilets across the country to be owned by the state, so this kind of boiling saltpeter in the Ming Dynasty was basically a private practice - of course, the health clinics also did it, but the court generally did not Talk about it directly.
Gao Pragmatic has been looking for the source of "overseas saltpetre", and finally he found it - in Tumut.
To be more specific, it is an amazing coincidence. Several large saltpeter mining areas are in the area controlled by Han Naji's hometown, West Post, which later became the Alxa Left Banner of Inner Mongolia.
The Xishao area of Hannaji is actually a very large area. How big is it... It probably started from Bayannaoer in Inner Mongolia in later generations, and then all the Inner Mongolia areas to the west, all the way to the Gansu border of the Ming Dynasty. It is estimated that With an area of 200,000 square kilometers, it is larger than Liaodong.
Of course, these places were vast and sparsely populated areas, and it was of little use to the Han Naji tribe. As a lord, he himself had never even been there.
When the people from Jinghua discovered saltpeter there, they easily discussed the development plan with Han Naji.
The development plan was very generous. In the dual names of Chechen Khan and Xishaotaiji, Han Naji paid 3,000 taels of silver per year to the three major saltpeter producing areas of Jilong Tonggu, Bayindala, and Hetun Salt Lake. The price was chartered to Jinghua.
That's right, three thousand taels, packed. The only condition is that Yan Jinghua of Hetun Yanchi cannot touch his and can only dig saltpeter.
It doesn't matter, he is pragmatic and has no shortage of salt. He owns the Yingkou Salt Field and his uncle has the Changlu Salt Field. If he waits a few more years to complete the reconstruction and expansion of the Yingkou Salt Field, he might become the world's largest salt merchant.
By then, the status of the Gao and Zhang families in the salt industry cannot be said to be equal to two-thirds of the world. At least one-third of the world will be no problem, so Hetun Yanchi asked Han Naji to stay on his own. That's it - anyway, the Mongolians don't even know how to refine it, they can only sell raw salt, there is no technical content at all, and the output is average, I love so and so.
The Ming court's level of control over the economy was actually very average. It only controlled what was produced within the Ming Dynasty and not what was produced overseas. Therefore, the output of these three major saltpeter mines was high and pragmatic. They could completely bypass supervision and just pay a 3% tax. ——This number was set when Gao Gong was in office. Most of the commercial taxes that have been levied across the country are now at this standard.
In this way, the Annan war was fought a little early. Although the saltpeter problem has been mostly solved, the sulfur issue has not yet been solved. Therefore, if Gao Pragmatic needs Annan to start a war with Burma, the sulfur problem can only be solved from Japan. Think of something.
Jinghua and Japan now have trade - the Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance does this, so it is not impossible for Gao Pragmatic to buy sulfur from Japan. Moreover, since Japan is located in a volcanic zone, not only is there a lot of sulfur, but the quality is also very good. The price is also relatively reasonable.
But the current trade with Japan is relatively unstable, because Japan is now in a state of chaos - a major event happened last year: the Honnoji Incident.
Needless to say, the Honnoji Change was probably the most famous and most influential coup in Japanese history. It can even be said to have completely changed the direction of Japan.
However, Gao Pragmatic had no time to lament the death of Oda Nobunaga, and he did not even worry about Toyotomi Hideyoshi - it was useless to worry, as he was out of reach and could not find a reason to interfere, and the Ming Dynasty still had a lot of troubles that it had not solved.
The key is that after the Incident at Honnoji Temple, Japan's Warring States Period was about to come to an end, but this "end" was also a particularly chaotic period, so he was mainly afraid that there would be problems with the purchase of sulfur, so he ordered the Beiyang Maritime Trade Department to increase sales in the past two days. They purchased sulfur vigorously, even regardless of the cost.
At the same time, he ordered Gao Qi to shift the focus of developing Taiwan Island from the southwestern Taipei area to the Taipei area, focusing on the search for natural sulfur mines - a high level of pragmatism, and he only knew the approximate location of the sulfur mines in northern Taiwan. , this location is very broad and cannot be accurate, so we have to send people to find it.
After finishing these things, he calculated the time and felt that even if Annan wanted to send troops, it would take at least three months to prepare. In other words, Liu Wei's current task was still very heavy.
The key is that Gao Pragmatic always felt that Liu Wei's military strength was a bit too weak. This guy's own servants were less than three thousand. The only thing that made Gao Pragmatic a little relieved was that Liu Wei's battle seemed to be relatively smooth in history.
Don't know why though.
Gao pragmatism suspected that this was because he was used to using force to overwhelm others when he was commanding battles, and was not used to Liu Wei's strategy of breaking through with elite troops and winning in one fell swoop.
It's a pity that Gao Pragmatic doesn't know enough about the specific combat process of the Ming-Burma War - there is nothing we can do about it. The documents of Chinese dynasties and dynasties all record the specific combat very crudely. In many cases, it is a very important victory battle, but there may be only two records in the history books. Three words: defeat, break, defeat, defeat, etc. The specific method of defeat is not mentioned at all, which is simply fucked.
Qi Jiguang hit the nail on the head when he said that the ancient art of war emphasized strategy rather than the "basic methods" of training and using troops.
However, although Liu Wei won the battle in history, and Gao Pangshi had specially strengthened the military preparations of Liu Wei's troops before, he himself was a "bad fighter" after all, so after much deliberation, he still gave Liu Wei and Cao Gan and I each wrote a letter.
The letter to Liu Wei was to tell him that if there was a shortage in logistics or even military preparation, he should go to the Southwest Branch of Jinghua Trading Company to solve the problem, and he would give them an order to fully cooperate; and the letter to Cao Gan was of course telling him this. , and asked him to notify the Southwest Branch. After all, Jinghua Trading Co., Ltd. was in charge of him, and Gao Jingshi did not want to jump over the command at all times - Chang Gong's Yin Jian was not far away, and Gao Jingshi did not intend to imitate him in logistics.
After finishing all these things, it was already the third day. Huang Zhiting's affairs were almost done. Gao Pragmatic was thinking about holding a practice banquet for her and sending her back to Annan to take charge.
Unexpectedly, an accident happened.
Early in the morning that day, the guarding eunuch Han Guang hurried to Fuyuan to ask for an audience with Gao Jingshi. After meeting Gao Jingshi, he went straight to the point: "Prime Minister Gao Gao, the emperor has summoned you urgently. Please return to the capital immediately!"
"Now?" Gao Pangshi was stunned: "In what name should I return to Beijing?"
Han Guang smiled bitterly and said: "This prince didn't say... Mr. Chen just meant to report his duties."
Gao pragmatic felt even more incredible. He was about to say, "But I have just taken up my new job." Who knows, Han Guang remembered something again and slapped his head hard: "Oh, look at my memory! The emperor also said, please Take Deputy Envoy Huang with you."
"Deputy Envoy Huang? Which Deputy Envoy Huang?" Gao Pingshi was simply confused. There are now two Deputy Envoys Huang in Liaodong. One is Huang Zhiting, Deputy Envoy of Annan Tribute, and the other is a military officer, also surnamed Huang, who is a senior official in his post. He is the Deputy Envoy of Shandong Province, and he can also be called Deputy Envoy.
But Han Guang seemed to have forgotten the deputy envoy behind him, and said directly: "Of course it is the one in your house, who else can it be?"
Gao Pingshi twitched the corner of his mouth and thought to himself: Can you, this "man", be more careful in your speech? What do you mean by this person in my house? I was so busy, but I didn’t have time to do anything bad... Well, I didn’t do anything, nothing!
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Thanks to book friends "Book Friends 20190223180428135" and "Zhang Shuidong" for their monthly ticket support, thank you!
PS: My biological clock seems to be out of whack today, so I have to post this chapter early. I probably won’t be able to bear it anymore and will fall asleep at night...
