The things discussed and agreed upon need to be put into practice to be meaningful, so early the next morning, Gao Pragmatic went to Shu to ask for the construction of Fuxin and Dandong cities. The reasons given were basically consistent with his discussions with Wu Dui and Liang Menglong. In addition, a "big principle" was added: comprehensively strengthening the border, building Liaodong, and laying a solid foundation.
This time, Gao Jingshi's dredging was extremely smooth. The emperor was very interested in building two new cities without spending money. Especially when Gao Jingshi mentioned that Fuxin is suitable for planting corn and raising horses, he was very interested in Zhu Yijun, and Zhu Yijun quickly approved it. , let the Ministry of Works calculate labor costs and other matters.
What's even more interesting is that the Xinxue School didn't raise any questions about Gao Pragmatic's memorial. Probably they couldn't find any suitable reason.
In the final analysis, Gao Pragmatic's plan this time is more thorough and does not cost "people's effort". According to Gao Pragmatic, the victims of Baoding and Hejian Prefectures in North Zhili Province who were damaged by severe snowstorms and ice disasters last winter can move to Dandong under the arrangement of the court; the victims of the 21 counties in Shaanxi and Shanxi affected by the disaster can move to Fuxin.
There are a large number of people affected by the disaster in these two places. Baoding and Hejian Prefectures are densely populated. The damage caused by the snowstorm caused the collapse of houses and displaced as many as 160,000 to 70,000 people without fixed homes. Gao Pragmatic suggested that all people under the age of fifty move to Dandong, and those over fifty should apply on their own (because although some people are older, their family members and relatives may have migrated, and they have someone to rely on when they move there).
The disaster situation in central Shanxi and northern Shaanxi is more complicated. In addition to the ice and snow disasters in winter, they were first hit by a wave of locusts in the autumn. Therefore, the situation is now even worse. It is expected that at least six of the 21 counties affected by the disaster will Seven hundred thousand people affected by the disaster are living in difficulty.
However, not all of these six to seven million people have reached the point of complete desperation. The Ministry of Household Affairs has not been able to grasp the actual number of which people have completely lost their livelihood. It can only rely on the inscriptions of local officials in various places to judge. It is expected that There are nearly 200,000 victims who have nothing.
However, unlike North Zhili, the two prefectures can be concentrated in Cangzhou and shipped directly to Dandong. It is a lot more troublesome for the victims in Shanxi and Shaanxi to take the sea route. They must first gather on the edge of the Yellow River, then go straight down the Yellow River to near the mouth of the sea, then transfer to sea boats to land at Yingkou, Liaodong, then take a section of waterway to the north, and finally transfer to the land route. Fuxin.
Such a long distance and so many changes in traveling methods were also a great test for the imperial court. The imperial court itself certainly does not have such a strong and comprehensive transportation force, so it will inevitably need Jinghua's help in this matter.
Supply stops during transportation require a large amount of food, medicinal materials, and even cloth, oil, salt, and other supplies to be stored in advance. These require the Ministry of Revenue to make requests in advance for local officials to prepare. If the local reserve is insufficient, the household department will need to allocate it in advance.
It has never been easy to immigrate in ancient society. It is common for 30% of people to die on the way. What's more, it is not that unusual for half of them to die on the way. But Gao Pragmatic deeply hated this phenomenon. What he resented most was the meaningless sacrifice of life. Therefore, when the emperor's approval came, he immediately organized manpower to start preparations. He also issued a rally order to Jinghua to mobilize all the resources that could be mobilized. and strength, be sure to avoid immigrant death and even illness as much as possible.
Since this matter was Gao Jingjing's idea, and Jinghua was his own property, in order to prevent being impeached later, Gao Jingshi also proposed a "budget" early on, including the expenses Jinghua needed during the relocation and transportation. The responsibilities assumed are clearly written.
At the same time, the “land enclosure bidding” for the whole society has also begun.
Jinghua first announced the "land enclosure bidding" planning map of Fuxin New Town. The map mainly focuses on the division of agate-distributed mountainous areas in Fuxin area (Liaohe Hetao area), and divides it into several plots for auction-style bidding. The two mountains that Jinghua bought in advance were also listed among them - Gao Pragmatic has made it clear that he will not get involved in the agate industry.
Because agate is different from other minerals, it is generally difficult to form so-called mineral deposits. Therefore, auctions are equivalent to "selling mountains" operations. The specific operations such as digging of rough stones are organized by the buyers themselves, whether they mine them themselves or outsource them, the Ministry of Household Affairs Don't care about everything.
However, precisely because mineral deposits cannot be formed, buying mountains also carries certain risks of gambling. At this time, Jinghua's status in the eyes of the world was reflected. The two mountains held by Jinghua were sold at the highest prices, and the mountains around them were also obviously more expensive.
According to Gao Pragmatic's previous regulations, 10% of the income from all the "Agate Mountains" sold will be directly allocated to Fuxin City, which is under construction, for the construction of city walls and other purposes. The remaining funds will be used for the construction of lanes or border walls after discussion between the Ministry of Household Affairs and the Ministry of Industry. It may even be used for the construction and expenses of the Hetao Border Wall, the Fuxin Military Preparation Yamen (estimated), and the Fuxin Guerrilla General Yamen (estimated). overhead.
The bidding situation of this auction was not much different from Gao Pragmatic's expectation. Not only nobles from various families participated, but also many civil servants and military generals were very interested and participated in it one after another.
To be honest, Gao Pragmatic is not optimistic about this kind of influx. He predicts that many people will quit this industry in the next ten years at most, and most of the "Agate Mountain" they bought now will be bought by others. Eventually Fuxin will also form several giants in the agate industry.
However, this was more pragmatic than anything else. Instead, he gave Liang Menglong some advice: Don’t be anxious when buying a mountain. What’s important is to try your best to collect the ancestral jade craftsmen as soon as possible. After Liang Menglong's advice, he actually arranged for his family to organize events.
This is all that can be done in Fuxin for the time being, and there is not much that can be prepared in advance for the subsequent specific construction. Anyway, there is a cement factory in Jinghua in Kaiping, and the food needed after the first batch of immigrants arrives. The Ministry of Household Affairs will mobilize corn from Liaodong nearby. To support.
Gao Pragmatic started the bidding work for Dandong City without stopping. Dandong is characterized by border trade and ports. The bidding for border trade is a bit more complicated. This matter must be coordinated with the Ministry of Industry, because the bidding is mainly for the Lifang land in Dandong City, which obviously requires advance planning. However, the Ministry of Industry has no plan beforehand, so it will obviously have to wait for some time.
The port issue is not easy either. The reason is that there is no place suitable as a seaport near Dandong City, which can only be used as a river mouth port. The location of the harbor needs to be moved a little further to the southwest, which is the location of the Dandong Donggang District in later generations.
However, the Donggang Seaport in later generations is essentially an artificial port, which was created by reclamation. In terms of the current natural conditions in Dandong, this port is obviously inferior to other high-quality natural ports owned by Jinghua, especially since the size of the port is limited by Under natural conditions, it is basically impossible to grow bigger.
The only thing that makes Gao pragmatic feel relieved is that this "big" standard is based on the situation of later generations. For now, after the construction of Dandong Seaport is completed, it will still be usable.
Originally, with Jinghua's strength and habits, Dandong River Port and Seaport could be eaten together. However, considering other factors, Gao Pragmatic opened both Dandong Ports to outside photography this time. In the end, Jinghua won 70% of the seaport's equity, while the river port only took 40% of the equity, becoming the only river port in Liaodong where Jinghua did not have more than 50% of its equity.
Perhaps because the location of Dandong was too remote, even if it was a concept proposed by Gao Pragmatic, everyone was not very keen to buy it. In the end, only 34,000 taels of silver were sold at the two ports.
This situation was somewhat beyond Gao's expectations. After reflection, he found that in addition to the remote location, there were other factors that affected the port's valuation.
The most important point is that Dandong and the large area of southeastern Liaodong that it backs are not wealthy places, nor do they have any decent industries, especially no leading industries.
At the same time, coupled with its close proximity to the Jurchens and North Korea, it is considered unsafe by some people. There is also the issue of the number of immigrants. Currently, only disaster victims from Baoding and Hejian Prefectures have been arranged to immigrate. Although the number is over 100,000 in name, it is not certain how many people will eventually arrive.
Population represents consumption power and trade volume. Although everyone may not have summarized these, they still have this kind of thinking in their hearts. Therefore, compared to Fuxin, there are far fewer people who are optimistic about Dandong. Even those who followed Jinghua to buy land in Dandong's Lianggang District mostly did so because they believed in Jinghua's vision, not necessarily because they themselves thought Dandong's future was promising.
So Gao Pragmatic had no choice but to go back and think about other ways to develop Dandong's economy.
There are many hot springs in Dandong, but they are meaningless at the moment. No matter how boring the rich people in the capital are, they will not travel so far to soak in hot springs. Dandong has huge boron reserves, accounting for nearly 60% of the country in the later Red Dynasty, but it is meaningless now because Even Jinghua couldn't make use of it; there were also large reserves of kaolin, marble, and andalusite, but the building materials were too far away to be competitive. Gao Pragmatic had no plan to burn porcelain. After all, there was no shortage of good places to burn porcelain in the Ming Dynasty.
Think again? Well, Dandong is rich in water resources, and both freshwater fish farming and marine fishing are good. Unfortunately, Gao is pragmatic and doesn't know how to can. Making salted fish consumes a lot of salt, so there is no profit.
What about agriculture? It seems that this is not Dandong's strong point, and in later generations Dandong's agriculture mainly relied on the Kuandian area, but the current Kuandian Liubao is obviously not under the control of Dandong.
After much deliberation, Gao Pragmatic finally came up with one idea: forestry resources. Because Dandong is close to the Yalu River, and the upper reaches of the Yalu River is the Changbai Mountain area, forestry resources are still very rich. There is no need to talk about the Jurchen side. There are a lot of trees on the side where Kuandian Liubao is located.
According to the reply he received from Liu Xin, the forests in the Kuandian area are in the transition zone between the two major plant communities of Changbai Mountain and North China, and the woody plants of the two major plant communities grow alternately. The representative species of woody plants in the Landrace flora community include Korean pine, sand pine, yew, and oak tree. The representative species of woody plants in the North China flora community include Scots pine, Pinus tabulaeformis, Quercus japonica, Quercus liaotungensis, chestnut, and Ailanthus altissima.
Under the influence of natural and human factors, these forest woody plant communities gradually evolved from red pine and oak forests to oak mixed wood forests, forming natural secondary forests. The forest types are mostly pure oak forest or mixed broad-leaved miscellaneous wood forest with birch, aspen, sesame, elm, ash willow and other types.
Some woods here are easier to use. For example, Quercus liaotungensis is used for shipbuilding. It is also suitable for making axles, building materials, etc., and it has good prospects. Most oak trees can be used, and even tussah silk can be produced by breeding. There are also trees such as birch. Although the wood is soft, it is a good material for making paper.
As for the current problem, what Gao Pragmatic is a little confused about is that he has no plans to build a new shipyard in Liaodong - Jinghua already has two shipyards in the north and south, and Huang Zhiting suggested opening one in Dingnan not long ago. There are three major shipyards here. It's completely enough. At this time, building another shipyard in Dandong will most likely lead to overcapacity.
Then the role of Dandong can only be to undertake the transfer of timber from the Changbai Mountain Area to Shandong. In other words, the economic value is still not high enough.
From this point of view, only building a paper mill is appropriate. Gao pragmatically thought about it and realized that after the paper mill was built in Dandong, it would not only allow local paper in Liaodong to rely on other provinces, but also allow it to be exported to North Korea and Japan nearby, which would kill two birds with one stone.
As mentioned before, Japan robbed many paper-making and printing craftsmen from Korea after the Imjin War and greatly improved the level of its own paper-making and printing industries. But to put it bluntly, North Korea's papermaking level obviously cannot surpass the Ming Dynasty, let alone Jinghua, which has high pragmatic guidance.
As long as Jinghua starts producing paper, it will be at the top level in East Asia, and it will also be able to classify. One type is traditional paper, such as rice paper, which is suitable for calligraphy writing; the other type is relatively "European-style" thick paper, which can be written with a hard pen.
Of course hard pen writing was not the mainstream in the Ming Dynasty, but this kind of paper was more suitable for printing. In other words, it was suitable for making books and improving the storage time of books.
Papermaking was quite popular in the Ming Dynasty, especially the technology to improve the performance of paper, which was generally praised by Shihlin. Of course, Gao Pragmatic would not reject it and would be happy to pursue it.
Talents in this area had ideas before because they were highly pragmatic, so they also recruited some. Now that Dandong has to find a leading industry, it can only rush the ducks to put them on the shelves and pull them out first.
When Gao Pragmatic announced that Jinghua would invest in the construction of "the largest papermaking factory in Ming Dynasty" in Dandong, the word Dandong immediately became valuable. Basically no one would doubt Jinghua if he said he wanted to build something "the biggest in Ming Dynasty".
However, the port land has been sold out, and now the Ministry of Industry has inexplicably received great attention: Since Dandong is going to build such a large papermaking factory, the land in Dandong City will obviously appreciate in value immediately, and those who intend to invest are waiting for the Ministry of Industry. Plan released.
Planning drawings are a change brought about by high pragmatism. In the past, Ming Dynasty never announced any planning drawings in advance when it was engaged in construction. Now the Ministry of Industry has been fooled by high pragmatism.
Shi Xing, the minister of the Ministry of Industry, originally thought that Gao Jingshi would also come to discuss with him, because he thought that Gao Jingshi would build the paper mill in the city. Who knew that Gao Jingshi talked to himself, in the name of the Ministry of Revenue, between the river port and the seaport outside the city? A piece of land was designated for the location and it was directly proposed to be sold to Jinghua.
Of course, going out with the left hand and entering with the right hand would definitely lead to impeachment, so he sent a letter to the emperor for this purpose, stating the significance of this paper mill and asking for the emperor's approval.
The city of Dandong was still on the drawing board. The emperor looked at the "circle map" presented by Gao Jingshi and was unmoved, and agreed with a stroke of his pen.
While Gao Pangshi was busy building the second city, a piece of news came: Li Rusong had arrived in Beijing from the Xuanfu Mansion and was waiting to see his Majesty.
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