On the last day of the Longevity Festival, as usual, I still didn't go back to the Yamen to work, but Gao Pingshi's house was very lively. It might not be busy with traffic, but it was still full of guests.
In the morning, four ministers from the Ministry of Revenue first came over and held a meeting in the name of a private party. The meeting mainly discussed the cost of rescuing Horqin.
There are generally two things to consider when it comes to spending. One is to make a total budget, and the other is where the money will come from.
The total budget obviously needs to be done well in several parts. When the imperial court sends troops, it needs military pay, rewards, gunpowder and projectiles, food and horse materials, and of course pensions, etc., but in the final analysis , all have to be paid by the Ministry of Accounts, so we have to make calculations.
These are just things that Ming Dynasty paid for themselves. Yesterday, the matter of sending troops to assist Tumote, which was discussed privately yesterday, will obviously also cost money. However, fortunately, Gao pragmatism has Tumote's unique status, and the relationship between public and private matters is considered strong. Tie, so you don’t need to spend money to reward directly, but buy horses instead.
But there is a small episode here. Shortly after Erdemutu left last night, he returned to find Gao Pragmatic and said that according to his estimation, the number of war horses that Tumut could directly trade at this time may be relatively limited, because the war horses Unlike the chariots of later generations, it is not a product of industrial production. It can be improved immediately by increasing production.
War horses are living creatures, with growth cycles, training cycles, and subsequent reproduction and reproduction, etc. Therefore, in general, Erdemutu estimates that Tumut will be able to ensure what he needs at this moment. , probably only up to 20,000 war horses (geldings) can be sold at one time.
The level of Tumut's war horses is relatively high. Originally, in the early days of Anda's tribute, the price was about 25-30 taels of silver per horse (because it is a living animal, the price of a single horse cannot be unified, and horses are often inspected and priced one by one. ), the average price is about 27 taels.
In the following years, as Daming was a big customer (both public and private), Tumut gradually increased the breeding of horses. As a result, the unit price of war horses dropped to a certain extent, with the average price starting at 23-24 It hovers around two (but on the whole, Tumut still earns more, because the cost of raising horses for Mongolians is really relatively low).
Since the horse purchase this time was of a certain nature as a reward, the price given by Gao Pragmatic was "the average price of a single horse is twenty-five taels." In this way, the total value of 20,000 war horses is as high as 500,000 taels.
Five hundred thousand taels, that's not a small amount. Fortunately, Gao Pragmatic doesn't plan to give all of it in cash, or even not give most of it in cash, but barter.
The private part of this transaction is obviously dominated by Jinghua itself. Since Jinghua is a commercial overlord, bartering is easier. No matter what Tumote needs, Jinghua can hardly be troubled. However, judging from Gao Pragmatic’s current understanding of Tumut trade, there is a high probability that they will focus on three types of products as their main “import” objects.
One is metal farm tools and production tools. Among them, the three largest agricultural tools are iron hoes, shovels and iron plows, while the daily utensils are iron pots and tin pots. Ironware is the best deal. Kaiping has enough production capacity and inventory to meet this deal. Tin pots are a little more troublesome, because most of this production capacity was transferred to southern Xinjiang by Gao Pragmatic in the past few years.
The reason why it is southern Xinjiang is because Indo-China Peninsula and Longya Peninsula are areas with particularly dense tin resources in the world. Gao Pragmatism not only transferred the production of a large number of tin products, but also tin alloys such as various bronzes - including a large number of bronze cannons. Manufacturing has also been moved to use minerals nearby and reduce costs.
However, this only involves logistics issues, and production capacity is not a problem. In terms of Gao Jingjing's face in front of Hannaji, he can even play futures trading, and Hannaji will never worry about Gao Jingjing's default on some tin pots.
The second type of product that the Tumut people want is porcelain. Don’t think that porcelain is a high-end product and therefore has no sales in nomadic areas. This is a huge misunderstanding, because the Tumut aristocrats are now Chinese-especially the “Han-life” is very strong. They consume high-end products and are very likely to be the local tycoons of the future generations of the Middle East. Their style.
The pricing power of porcelain is in the hands of Daming. It is a typical high value-added product. A small amount of porcelain can be exchanged for a large number of livestock. Therefore, even if the total amount required by the other party is not large, the value is definitely not low. As for porcelain, Gao is more pragmatic. Since Yu kiln (Jun porcelain) came back to the world, its prices have skyrocketed in recent years (it is difficult for Gao to speculate on this kind of thing). A set of tea sets can be exchanged for several hundred high-quality pieces. There is no such thing as a war horse that has a price but no market, nor does it have a market without a price. It does have a market volume. Of course, in order to maintain scarcity, the volume is still relatively limited.
In addition, the third largest category of products is textile products. Tumut has basically no output in these products, relying almost entirely on imports from the Ming Dynasty, so whether it is the coarse homespun cloth needed by ordinary herdsmen, or various mid-to-high-end silk and satin yarns, and even the most high-end "Beijing velvet and Su satin" , Hangluo", they all have needs.
However, when it comes to high-end fabrics, Gao Pragmatic does not intend to let Jinghua get involved this time, because he has to leave a door open for the court and the Ministry of Household Affairs. Many people in later generations know that there were "three major weavings" in the Qing Dynasty. In fact, they also existed in the Ming Dynasty. There were admiral weaving eunuchs in Jiangning County, Nanjing, who were responsible for official weaving.
The official weaving in the Ming Dynasty can be divided into imperial official bureaus and local official bureaus. Among them, the official bureaus of the imperial court include the Inner Weaving and Dyeing Bureau located in Nanjing, also known as the Southern Bureau, which is affiliated to the Ministry of Industry; the Outer Weaving and Dyeing Bureau located in Beijing, which is the Weaving and Dyeing Institute of the Ministry of Industry; and there are Shenbo Hall and Liuzhou in Nanjing. Beijing supplies computer room.
Its local government bureaus included a total of 22 weaving and dyeing bureaus located in eight provinces including Zhejiang and Southern Zhili. Later, after abolition, mergers and other rectifications, they were reduced to 19 in four provinces seven years after Jiajing. Official weaving is mainly based on the unpaid labor of dyeing and weaving craftsmen from various places (some are craftsmen and some are corvee), and generally adopt the form of bureau weaving for centralized production.
The silk fabrics supplied by these weaving and dyeing bureaus were not only used by the palace, but were also often used to reward civil and military officials. According to statistics since Gao Pangshi took office as Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, the brocade and other official uniforms given to officials alone require tens of thousands of brocade materials every year. For example, the "big red silk so-and-so uniform" he was given It is a product of these weaving bureaus - of course, it is only given once. If you keep wearing it out, you have to spend money to make it yourself. Anyway, the essence of "gift" is actually giving you the qualification to wear this kind of robe.
Such huge demand makes it difficult for government-run weaving companies to bear the burden. Therefore, for a long time, the palace and the government often used methods such as "leading to weave", "purchasing" and "purchasing" to collect satin from the people. However, this situation improved to a certain extent after the uncles and nephews of the Gao family took charge of financial affairs, and because the Ming court as a whole showed a "commercialization" tendency.
There are two key points in the specific performance: First, due to the demonstration effect of Tumut, the products woven by the Ming government began to be sold commercially. The direct sales of the imperial court were mainly concentrated on land, of which the bulk was sold to the richest soil on the grassland. Mert.
The second is Jinghua agency sales, which mainly takes the sea route. Since Jinghua itself has limited strength in Jiangnan, and is even weaker in silk, Jinghua's textile business has long been mainly focused on mid- to low-end products such as yarn and cloth. Relying on the technical advantages of the improved Jenny spinning machine, it has taken Small profits but quick turnover.
But no matter how powerful the Jiangnan Merchant Gang's plutocrats are, they don't dare to challenge the Tian family in person - well, in fact, it's mainly because they don't dare to challenge the "ancestral system", because the admiral weaving eunuchs belong to the ancestral system and have been in existence for a long time. Therefore, a new method emerged in which the government-run weaving company was responsible for production and the Jinghua Group was responsible for overseas sales.
This method is that Jinghua purchases a large number of products from various weaving bureaus at a price slightly lower than half the market price, and then directly ships them to overseas for sale. The reason why this approach did not arouse strong opposition from the Jiangnan Merchant Gang chaebol is obvious: the sales market is overseas, has no direct relationship with the country, and has not shaken their fundamentals.
On the other hand, because the total output of the Weaving Bureau is actually not very large, it is impossible to meet the demand of the entire overseas market. The Jiangnan chaebols continue to sell overseas without any impact.
One thing to say is that one of the important reasons why Gao Pragmatic was willing to carry out such consignment sales was that the official weaving of the Ming Dynasty was not on the same level as the original official military manufacturing. It is a commonplace that the products manufactured by the military industry are of poor quality, so there is no need to say more about it. However, the government-run weaving industry is completely different. The quality of its products is almost the best.
The government-run weaving industry in the Ari Ming Dynasty has always been strictly managed. For example, later generations discovered that the fabrics unearthed from Dingling basically all had girdle seals, which are rectangular labels in regular Chinese calligraphy with clouds and dragons printed on both ends, which record the color, name, pattern, origin of the fabric, and the weaver and dyer. , name of the supervisor, etc. It can be inferred from this information that an accountability system was most likely implemented for craftsmen at that time.
This is actually easy to understand. The users of military products are military households who have almost no human rights. As mentioned above, government-owned woven products are often given to civil and military officials - those who can be given submissions are not small officials. , give them some rags?
Hey, you are a great eunuch weaver. The princes of the imperial court must dig up all the ancestral graves for you!
Therefore, one of the important issues discussed by Gao Pangshi and the four ministers this morning was to urgently dispatch a large number of finished products from various weaving bureaus in the south of the Yangtze River to go northward to offset part of the imperial court's purchase of horses.
Of course, it is not enough for the Ministry of Household Affairs to talk about this discussion alone. After all, the textile bureaus are under the Ministry of Industry. Although the Ministry of Household Affairs took over most of the financial power last year, this reform has not been fully completed. Therefore, although the Ministry of Household Affairs can To decide on the use of the product, you still need to send a letter explaining it to the Ministry of Industry and report to the emperor for approval.
Gao Wuzhen was very busy now and had no time to write the memorial himself, so this work was handed over to his senior brother Cheng Wen, the left minister of the Ministry of Revenue. If the position of Zuo Shilang were to be expressed in the terms of later generations, it would be roughly equivalent to "Executive Deputy XX". The first item of responsibilities was to "assist XX (chief officer) in grasping the overall situation". In addition, Cheng Wenwen was a highly pragmatic person of the practical school. One of the core warriors of the First Series, so it is only fitting that he does this.
This time the share of the horse purchase was divided. The imperial court shouldered a huge share of 350,000 taels. Jinghua single-handedly helped take away the share of 150,000 taels. This was basically equivalent to the imperial court buying 14,000 geldings, and Jinghua buying them. The remaining 6,000 horses.
On average, the cavalry of the Ming Dynasty cannot reach the level of one person and two horses, but it is not as good as one person. The 14,000 horses can still be equipped with at least 10,000 cavalry. This is very important to Jiubian's overall military strength. Quite helpful. At this time when the war was approaching, Gao Pragmatic believed that the emperor should be able to agree. As long as the emperor agreed, the Minister of Industry, although stone-faced, could not object.
In the afternoon, a new group of people came to Shangshu Gaofu. Zhou Yong, the Minister of War, came with three ministers to visit - there was also a minister who was not in the capital and went to inspect the defense of Jizhen. Now he is in Daning. Of course he can't come.
Although almost all officials in the capital know that Zhou Yong, the Minister of War, is almost a mouthpiece for Gao Pragmatism, the Ming Dynasty is about rules and etiquette after all, so Zhou Yong still pretends that "Gao Situ is familiar with Liao affairs and asks for advice." The flag comes.
Because of the presence of his staff, Gao Pragmatic also gave him extra face. His words were full of "suggestions", "pragmatic opinions", "likely", "possible" and so on. However, attitude is attitude. In fact, the highly pragmatic "suggestions" include not only who should lead the troops, how many troops should be led, but also how many troops should be sent to a certain unit, when and where each army should gather, at what speed to march, and which route to take. The details such as roads were clearly explained.
Well, to put it simply, all Zhou Benbing had to say was, "It's great Situ's opinion, Yong et al. will definitely do it."
After talking about the arrangements for the imperial army's economic system, Gao Pragmatic also took the initiative to mention the issue of two reinforcements, namely the Tumote reinforcements and the Jinghua reinforcements.
Tumut is far away from Liaodong. It is impossible for his cavalry to drive all the way from Datong to outside the border wall of Liaodong. It is even more inconvenient to let them travel hundreds of miles within the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, Tumut's Reinforcements are mainly responsible for creating military pressure on Tumen.
To put it simply, Tumote sent troops eastward, assuming a posture of using Daning City as a stronghold and pointing directly at Chahanhot. As for the follow-up, unless the Tumen army gives up attacking Horqin and Yehe, fully retreats to Chahanhot, or even simply meets the Tumed army west, otherwise the Tumen cavalry will slowly approach Chahanhot.
However, Gao Pragmatic also made it clear that Tumote was obviously not here to fight a decisive battle with Tumen this time. Once Tumen Khan's main force moved westward, Tumute would retreat. As for the reason, pacifying Chahar was the goal set by the Ming emperor for himself. If this credit was really taken by Tumote, wouldn't it be embarrassing for the Ming Dynasty?
Besides... I didn’t give enough money!
The problem with Jinghua is much simpler. Gao Pragmatic made his position clear in one sentence: "The cavalry of Ding Siqian is temporarily under Xiao Ruxun's command and is under his command. Pragmatic will not be controlled remotely."
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