How can politics be so innocent? The difference between politicians and politicians is that politicians consider more the interests of the country and the nation, while politicians consider more the interests of themselves or their group. However, regardless of the former or the latter, if they want to succeed, they often have to resort to unscrupulous means.
Talk about treachery? Yes, but it can also be said to be full of cleverness.
Shameless? Yes, but it can also be said to be calm and rational.
The word "official" has two meanings, no matter how you explain it, there is a reason.
"Didn't I just say that I have a few things to say? Xiong Tingbi's inspection tour of Gansu is the second one." Gao pragmatically said: "As for the third thing, you tell Sheng Wu that after the 'Medicinal Diet Case' is over, I will Recommend Wang Ting, the minister of Dali Temple, to be the censor of Youdu."
"Liantang is going to be transferred to the Metropolitan Procuratorate?" Liu Xinxi said: "Youdu Censor is the second grade, a higher rank than Xu Sanwei. Are you planning to let Liantang take over as the governor of Gansu and take charge of the strategic responsibility of the Western Expedition?"
Gao pragmatic nodded and said: "Yes. Jingqing is the same year as me, and his qualifications are sufficient. Moreover, he will be the governor of Gansu and even the manager thereafter, so he will naturally not have any objection to my strategy for the Western Expedition. In this way, The three important people on the Western Expedition front are all peers, so I have a good grasp of the war situation."
Liu Xin smiled and nodded, and added: "In addition, he has actually been like Teacher Yuan'er over the years. You give him such a great achievement... Oh, an opportunity to make great achievements can be regarded as repaying this favor." ”
Gao pragmatic smiled and said nothing.
Return the favor? Then I really don’t have to. Wang Tingzhuan had a hidden disease in the original history, but he didn't know it, so he died suddenly before he was forty years old. If I hadn't known about it and asked him to go to medical school for treatment a few years ago, he would now be Long gone.
Besides, even excluding this incident, his official career has gone so smoothly. Do you think it’s not my fault? Not only him, Xiao Liang is now the right minister of the Ministry of Rites. Isn't it also my contribution?
When Liu Xin saw that Gao Pragmatic didn't answer, he asked again: "After the three leaders have made arrangements, how will the Western Expedition be fought? Do you have any detailed explanations? Why don't you explain it to me first so that I can convey it to my brother? .”
Gao pragmatically said: "There are ready-made cases to learn from."
Liu Xin was stunned for a moment, and then suddenly said: "You mean Zuo Zongtang regained Xinjiang? But only you know that, but I only know about this, and I don't know how he did it. Besides, he regained Xinjiang Is the situation we faced then really the same as what we are facing now?”
Gao pragmatically said: "The main problem Zuo Zongtang faced at that time was lack of money. At this point, the situation we faced was much better than what he had at the time. After all, the emperor was willing to fight this battle, and he was a hands-off shopkeeper. , the money bag has always been at my disposal.
In this way, at least I don't have to face Li Hongzhang, who opposes me every day and opposes me in raising money and food by using coastal defense and defense at the same time. In the end, I can only borrow money to fight the war. Of course, I don’t necessarily have to borrow money, but I don’t need to borrow foreign debt. I just need to issue a Western Expedition loan internally.
Speaking of this, more and more silver has flowed into the Ming Dynasty in recent years. When the Ministry of Accounts cleared the accounts at the end of last year, it was discovered that in addition to the good phenomenon that the treasury's revenue continued to increase compared with the past, there are also some phenomena that deserve vigilance. "
After all, Liu Xin had the same background as him. She immediately understood the elegant meaning of the song and asked, "Why, are there signs of inflation in the market?"
"It's more or less." Gao Pragmatic said seriously: "At least there are signs of rising prices in the northern and southern Beijing, Susong, Yangzhou and other places."
"How much has it increased?" Liu Xin asked with a frown.
"The current financial calculation level cannot accurately calculate the percentage. But generally speaking, taking the capital as an example, rice noodles have increased by 20%, cotton has increased by more than 10%, and pork has increased by 30%. However, silk brocade is an exception, and its price Instead, it dropped by nearly 10%.”
Liu Xin suddenly felt worried and asked: "Staple food and pork have gone up, which is not a good thing...but why did silk go down instead?"
Gao pragmatically said: "I think it was caused by the excessive prosperity of maritime trade in the past few years and the rapid expansion of production in the main silk production areas in Jiangnan. Well, I mean, the silk production capacity expanded too fast, but it is a high-end product after all, and the price is quite high. , once exports are blocked or the market falls short of expectations, it may lead to a backlog of products, which will impact the domestic market and lead to price declines when other commodities generally increase in price."
"The price fluctuation of silk should have little impact on the country, right? This kind of high-end fabric will not affect the basic needs of ordinary people... I think the biggest trouble is food and meat. Oh, by the way, the price of silk has dropped. Why did the cotton price go up?”
"Economic issues often affect the whole body. You said that silk has nothing to do with ordinary people. This idea is a bit too shallow. Let me ask you, after the rapid development of sea trade business in recent years, how will the silk industry in Jiangnan region be affected? How much has the production capacity increased? How many silk-related practitioners have increased? Once the silk business is in recession, will the income of ordinary people engaged in the silk industry also decrease accordingly? "
"Oh, yes." Liu Xin nodded, but after thinking about it, she said: "But the silk industry is a high-profit industry after all. Even though there are many people in the Jiangnan area engaged in this industry, the reason why they are engaged in this industry is , it should have been for the generous salary, and even if it has dropped a little now, it shouldn't affect food and clothing, right?"
"As for food and clothing, it should not be affected for the time being, but the current trend is worthy of vigilance." Gao Pragmatic frowned and said: "I have also been wondering recently whether large-scale wars have occurred in Europe, Arabia, India and other regions, leading to this kind of There is less demand for luxuries in life.”
Liu Xin spread her hands: "This topic is beyond my scope. This is what you are good at - are there any large-scale wars in these three regions recently?"
Gao Pragmatic frowned and said: "There must be wars in India. I said that the Mughal Empire is now on the rise. They have almost completely unified northern India and are expanding towards the south. There must be many large and small wars. . However, although the Indian market is not small, it is not the main exporter of silk from the Ming Dynasty. If you really want to go crazy in love with silk, you have to look to Europe."
"Is there a war in Europe?" Liu Xin asked.
"Hey, when will Europe not go to war? It's just about fighting hard or not." Gao Pragmatic rolled his eyes: "In Spain, the Anglo-Spanish War and the Eighty Years' War have continued; the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Swedish War have continued. The Swedish War should have just ceased war last year; Tsarist Russia is currently expanding into Siberia while peeking at the weakened Baltic Sea region after the Polish-Swedish War; the Ottoman Empire...oh, I understand."
Liu Xin Leng said: "What do you know? How is the Ottoman Empire?"
"The Ottoman Empire's Sultan Muhammad III has been fighting with Austria in recent years, and the battlefields are mainly in the Kingdom of Hungary and Wallachia - which later became Romania."
"So what?" Liu Xin was still confused.
Gao pragmatic shook his head and said: "This Muhammad III... was also a wonderful man. He had his sixteen brothers hanged one after another. He didn't bother to take care of the government affairs and left them all to his mother, the Queen Mother Shafiye. . To make matters worse, during this war, he once planned to escape when the situation was unfavorable. Although he was later dissuaded, it still led to his very bad reputation in the country.
Although this person has average ability, his ambition is not small, which can be seen from his support for Burihatu. But after thinking about it just now, I have a new suspicion: He may have deliberately cut off certain commodities from Arabia to Europe because the war with Austria was not going well. Silk, for example, may have been affected by this. "
Liu Xin frowned and said: "When silk goes to Europe, apart from the Silk Road which has not been smooth for a long time, it now mainly relies on the Maritime Silk Road. Now that Spain is busy with the war, the pure sea route has been affected. If Ottoman interferes with it, then The road from the sea to the land is not smooth either... I think your speculation is reasonable. But, what should we do now?"
Gao pragmatic thought for a while, shook his head and said: "We don't have much influence. If we must say... we might as well fight the Western Expedition honestly and see if we can reopen the overland Silk Road in the future. "
"Okay, then why is the price of food and meat rising?"
"There's more silver." Gao pragmatically said: "This is just like the European price revolution. The Ming Dynasty obtained a large amount of silver through sea trade, but who made the vast majority of this silver? Mainly nobles, bureaucrats, and wealthy businessmen.
Although they certainly have to spend money and can generate circulation, whether they are for normal consumption or expanded production, the main coverage of this money is still in cities, and there is almost no way to penetrate into rural areas. As a result, there will be more money in the city, but the output of rice, noodles and pork may not increase much, so prices will naturally rise.
Correspondingly, as urban people gained more money through business activities with these nobles, bureaucrats, and wealthy businessmen, of course the prices of the cotton cloth they all needed to buy would also increase. As for why cotton cloth has not increased as much as food and meat, it is naturally because Jinghua has developed a spinning jenny, which has greatly increased cotton production. "
Liu Xin clapped her hands and said: "As expected of the local official, this analysis is really accurate. Who else can do this Ming Dynasty strategy so well except you? But the question now is... are we digressing from the topic?"
"Haha, it's a bit off topic, but it's not completely off topic." Gao Pragmatic laughed and said: "Look, the prices of food, meat and cloth have increased. Doesn't this have an impact on the Western Expedition? In other words, if the Western Expedition Victory can also alleviate these problems, so it is not beside the point."
"The Western Expedition to open up the overland Silk Road will definitely have an impact on the silk market, but what impact will it have on food, meat and cloth?"
"But that's not the case. For example, when it comes to fabrics, ordinary people mostly wear cotton. Once the Western Expedition captures the Yarkand region, can't we greatly promote the planting of cotton in that world-class excellent cotton producing area? Although the current traffic situation is better than The difference will be huge after hundreds of years, but if cotton with high yield and good quality is made into finished products locally, even if shipping costs are added, it will still be competitive enough.
And once the cotton production there increases significantly, can the cotton fields in the thirteen provinces of Ming Dynasty and Ming Dynasty be converted from cotton to rice, or to meat breeding such as pigs and sheep? As the same saying goes, the economy affects the whole body, so we can’t look at it too directly. "
Liu Xin rolled her eyes at him and said: "Okay, okay, you can think about the economic issues. I still want to ask how to fight the Western Expedition?"
Gao Pragmatic said helplessly: "According to Zuo Zongtang's old wisdom, the terrain of Western Xinjiang is divided into two roads, north and south, with the Tianshan Mountains as the boundary, and Hami is right in the middle. There is a road going north from Hami to the west, passing through Barkol, the ancient city, and Urumqi to Yili. ; There is another road heading south from Hami to the west, passing through Pizhan, Turpan, Kuqa, Aksu and reaching Kashgar.
Therefore, the general grain station set up by our Western Expedition Army should neither be in Zhuanglang nor Suzhou in the west of Gansu Province. Instead, Hami must be captured first and Hami should be set up as a transshipment hub to supply the Western Expedition Army. Food, wages and weapons are needed. "
Liu Xin found a map of the Western Region, looked at it for a while and said: "The two roads you mentioned are indeed true, but Yarkand is almost all on the south road, and the north road should still be in the hands of the Oara tribes, so you means?"
"First south and then north, take both routes." Gao Pingshi said seriously: "This is exactly another thing I want to say."
Liu Xin became serious and asked: "The emperor didn't say that he would beat Wala as well. If you do this..."
"So I said this is another matter." Gao Pingshi said calmly: "The emperor did not say that he wanted to attack Wala, but something can be done here...
You should remember that Anda Khan went on several expeditions to the west, including Qiejin Huangtaiji and others from the Ordos tribe, who also went west to conquer Oara, and forced Oara to admit that they were still Yuan ministers, or that they still submitted to the so-called Mongolian orthodoxy.
Since there is such a layer, there are at least two points to make a fuss about here: First, if the Oara tribes say that the 'Great Yuan' they surrender to is the Chahar tribe, then our Western Expedition army will naturally attack the Chahar tribe. If that's not enough, it would be better to chase down the poor bandits with the remaining brave men and defeat Wala as well.
Secondly, if they do not recognize that the Chahar tribe is still their communist leader, then they will fight in the name of King Shunyi - they have fought before anyway, so why not fight again? As for the name used by King Shunyi, it doesn't matter. Anyway, let Erdemutu find a name for his father.
In a word, it is not enough to take only the southern route. If you want to take it, take the whole region. Especially the Ili River Valley, it is a key place where the Western Expedition will not be lost. It must be won! "
After listening to this, Liu Xin had nothing to say against this time. She just wondered: "Why did you mention Erdemutu again? Isn't he sitting in Helin? Do you plan to let him go with the Western Expedition this time?" "
"Yes, he must go, because I can't go myself this time, so if he doesn't go, I won't worry about the Ordos Ministry... Oh, I'm not worried that the Ordos Ministry has other intentions, the main thing is that we can't let them work as foreigners. Therefore, Erdemutu must go out on behalf of his father to supervise the work for me."
"Tsk tsk tsk tsk... What a big deal." Liu Xin said, looking at the map, wondering what she was thinking.
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Thanks to book friend "Cao Mianzi" for your reward and support, thank you!
Thank you to the book friend "Single Rider Zhao Bixin" for your support of 8 monthly tickets, thank you!
PS: Not much to say, still working on the next chapter.
