Yes, according to what the factory manager said about this matter, it is not only a matter of whether people are willing to get loans, but also the issue of obstruction. It is no wonder that now, branches in various provinces are not able to provide loans.
Since we have to follow the rules and do things, how should we do this? They knew that the emperor would definitely ask them soon, but in such a short period of time, they seemed unable to think of a way.
Sure enough, Emperor Chongzhen asked them again, how to deal with this matter?
When they heard this, they became a little anxious. If the emperor couldn't find a solution, would he grant Wang Chengen's request again and give the factory guards unbridled power?
Emperor Chongzhen glanced at them and saw that they were all thinking hard and seemed to be a little worried, so he knew that everything was developing as he expected.
No matter what, these officials would not dare to let the factory guards have the power to break the rules. Otherwise, the factory guards themselves have the responsibility to supervise the officials, and if they break the rules, the consequences will be terrible for them, the people being supervised. Absolutely disastrous.
Of course, Emperor Chongzhen also understood that if he really wanted to do that, it would mean that the imperial power was no longer enough to deter the world. In fact, neither the power of civil servants nor the power of factory guards can get out of control. Once this happens, it will be disastrous for the stability of the Ming Dynasty.
In the early days of Tianqi's reign, the power of civil servants was too great; in the middle and later periods, in order to deal with civil servants, too much power was given to factory guards, which all caused turmoil in the government.
Emperor Chongzhen estimated that it was almost done, so he looked as if he had just thought of a way, and said to the ministers: "I have thought of it, maybe I can lend the bank's money to the people, so that the people can benefit from it! "
Upon hearing this, many people breathed a sigh of relief. If there really was a way, then the emperor would definitely not let the factory guards mess around, and that would be the best.
Therefore, Xue Guoguan, the first assistant, first responded: "Your Majesty is wise and powerful, and you must have a good idea. Please state it clearly. I am all ears!"
"Yes, listen to Your Majesty, it must be right!"
"..."
Other courtiers also followed suit and flattered the emperor.
After hearing this, Emperor Chongzhen said: "My idea is that since private loans are difficult, we can use the royal textile factory to provide loans from the royal or local governments, open factories according to the conditions of various places, and hire local people to create wealth. Let the people have another income besides farming, so that they can become rich faster!"
Upon hearing this, Xue Guoguan and others couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed.
If this matter were mentioned in this way from the beginning, the civil servants would definitely think that it was a matter of competing for the interests of the people, which is inappropriate, inappropriate!
However, Emperor Chongzhen had asked them to think about the move first, but they couldn't figure it out. Admiral Dongchang said that someone was causing trouble and wanted to kill chickens and monkeys, but after all, others were doing things within the rules that affected private loans. If the factory guard took action from this, the rules would be messed up, and the tiger of the factory guard would be unscrupulous. They could go back and punish the civil servants like this and repeat the horrors of the Apocalypse years. This is something they absolutely don't want to do.
After a while, Chief Assistant Xue Guoguan asked their doubts on behalf of the civil servants: "Your Majesty, if this is the case, then the bank can collect the collateral, what will happen if the money is not paid, and what will happen if the factory loses money... "
When Emperor Chongzhen heard this, he immediately said without hesitation: "Of course, we must follow the bank's loan rules. Even the royal family and local governments are no exception. The same is true. You must be cautious about which factory you open. No matter how large a factory you open, it will not matter. Be careful, these things can be discussed in detail!"
In fact, what he is talking about is still the state-owned enterprise model. In the context of great concentration of power, if Ming Dynasty's economy is to take off, state-owned enterprises are the best engines.
Yes, state-owned enterprises also have shortcomings, but nothing can be perfect! As long as state-owned enterprises can help Ming Dynasty's economic take-off at this stage, that will be enough.
Since the private sector does not have loans for whatever reason, it is up to state-owned enterprises to do this, by opening factories and hiring people to do it.
At this time, farmers basically have nothing to do once they finish their farm work. This labor force is simply wasted. If there is another place where they can make money, I believe they would be willing to do it. As a result, the people will become rich, and Ming Dynasty's goods will also increase. Don’t those Westerners really want the products of the Ming Dynasty? No problem, just give them as much as you want!
After Emperor Chongzhen gave a brief explanation and compared the two things, these officials naturally chose the thing that had the least impact on them. This is the skill of doing things, and only by doing this can the ministers support this matter.
After all, Emperor Chongzhen was not a godly man, he was so energetic that he could do everything himself. The Ming Dynasty had such a large territory, and countless things happened every day. Officials must help him to deal with the things well. Whether the officials working below are attentive and responsible are the key factors that affect whether something can be done well.
Emperor Chongzhen knew this very well, and therefore, even though he had already thought of a way, he still had to discuss it with these ministers to make them think it was a good idea, so that things could be arranged smoothly.
Emperor Chongzhen discussed the specific details with them for a long time before finally coming up with a framework. Let’s start with the southern provinces to set an example for this matter.
If the local government does this, it will use the local tax money retained every year as collateral to start local state-owned enterprises from tea, silk, raw silk, ceramics, etc.; and if the royal side comes forward, then it will use the annual local tax money to do this. The gold and silver collected were used as collateral for loans to engage in tea, silk, raw silk, ceramics and other businesses.
In this way, if the local government fails to operate seriously and loses money, and does not pay the bank, the tax money retained in the local government will be gone, which will inevitably affect the local government itself, and they cannot help but be careful. The same is true for the royal family. Gold, flowers and silver are a major source of income for the palace. Once they are gone, it is also a loss.
Of course, just doing this is not enough. This kind of state-owned enterprise was only a royal textile factory led by the Queen in the Ming Dynasty. At least at the local level, there is no similar experience. If state-owned enterprises in various places use their power to oppress workers and compete viciously with their peers for the sake of profit, then it would not be believed.
Since it is a state-owned enterprise, the leaders of the state-owned enterprise can be managed by officials assigned by the government, and at the same time, they are supervised by the local procuratorate and factory guards. This can be used to control the state-owned enterprise and the original intention of the establishment of the state-owned enterprise will not deviate from the direction.
This matter was finally settled under the leadership of Emperor Chongzhen.
Because of the Martyrs' Shrine incident, Emperor Chongzhen first focused on economic matters. At this time, once the results were available, he immediately paid attention to the disaster prevention and relief situation in each province. At least in his impression, the natural disasters during the Little Ice Age in the late Ming Dynasty would last until the Kangxi period of the Manchu Qing Dynasty before slowly ending.
Sure enough, he just took a look and found that there was a newly arrived memorial, news about the severe drought and locust plague in the south of the Yangtze River.
Because of Emperor Chongzhen's attention, local officials immediately reported the situation as soon as they found signs of a severe drought. Over in Nanjing, Sun Chuanting, Lu Jiude and others in charge immediately discussed and started disaster prevention and relief according to the strategy set by Emperor Chongzhen.
First, concentrate the people's power and mobilize the army to fight the drought; second, control food and distribute it according to rations; third, immediately mobilize food and other materials from other places to support disaster-stricken areas such as Suzhou Prefecture. At this time, Emperor Chongzhen saw for the first time that among the relief supplies, there were a large number of sweet potatoes shipped from Zhejiang and Fujian.
Sweet potatoes were first grown in Fujian during the Ming Dynasty and yielded a large amount of output. The governor of Fujian at that time was overjoyed and immediately promoted it with all his strength. However, due to various factors, it failed in the end.
In the past few years, Emperor Chongzhen, who had traveled through time, personally came forward to vigorously promote it. In particular, the output of cash crops such as sweet potatoes was used as one of the indicators for local officials to evaluate their political performance. The difficulty of this promotion was greatly reduced. Naturally, provinces such as Fujian and Zhejiang, which have already begun planting sweet potatoes, have much higher yields than other provinces.
Seeing sweet potatoes starting to appear in the list of relief supplies, Emperor Chongzhen finally smiled. Years of hard work had not been in vain. Sweet potatoes and other supplies will be promoted earlier than in the original history, and will be known to the people, saving more people's lives and helping them survive the famine.
The original historical record of this famine said that in the spring of the 15th year, there was a severe drought in Taicang Prefecture, and the money for a fight of rice was 110 Wen, and there were some food cannibals among the people. There are more than a thousand hungry people in Yihui Temple and Longfu Temple, and they are dying every day without water. Taxes and grains are urgent. One-third of the grain is allowed, and the wheat is discounted at one or two and five cents per stone. There are four taels of winter rice per stone, and people are starving to death, and corpses are floating in the river. Hundreds of children were abandoned in the alleys of the city gates. Some people lured them away, or regarded them as dead. They abandoned the piles of graves, gathered them together and burned them, or dug pits to bury them. They built countless graves. Fortunately, those who survived peeled off the bark of elm trees to make cakes and the chaff bark to make porridge. Looking at the village, all the bark was peeled off. It was a famine that had not happened in decades.
When there is a severe drought, there will often be locust plagues.
History also records that there was a severe drought in Gui'an, Huzhou Prefecture, and locusts covered the sky. Wherever they gathered, all the seedlings and reeds were standing. The people peeled bark, sawdust, and chaff to eat, or dug up the white mud in the mountains for food. This is called Guanyin powder. In Liangcun, a place on the left side of Hanshan Mountain, hundreds of gangsters gathered to cause chaos. Fortunately, they were extinguished in a few days. However, the plague continued, but instead of freeing money and food, the government severely punished and punished the villagers. However, the price of rice in Wu County, Suzhou Prefecture is as high as 3 liang or 3 qian per stone of silver, and the price of wheat is 2 liang or 2 qian per stone. The people are increasingly struggling to eat and are fleeing. The young and old are abandoned on the roads. Houses in urban and rural areas have fallen into the air, and dead bodies are scattered on pillows.
Such a human tragedy, in this dimension, under Emperor Chongzhen's vigorous national policy of disaster prevention, local officials worked together and took action as soon as there were signs. When the disaster broke out, the people had food relief to survive, and it did not cause widespread starvation or other vicious incidents. This made the people who had experienced previous famines feel even more grateful to the government, the court, and Emperor Chongzhen.
It can be said that every time a natural disaster is defeated, the prestige of the government, the court and Emperor Chongzhen among the people becomes higher. It has become increasingly difficult for local officials and gentry to influence and influence the people as before, and to do things that are not conducive to the court.
We can also know from this disaster that natural disasters are not terrible. As long as the government and the people work together to overcome the disaster, we will surely be able to defeat nature! In the original late Ming Dynasty, the reason why natural disasters became unmanageable was because the government was no longer able to provide disaster relief.
Emperor Chongzhen was very satisfied with the disaster relief work in Suzhou, so he issued an order to commend those involved. Sun Chuanting, Lu Jiude and others were also promoted. Among them, Sun Chuanting was granted the title of Bachelor of the East Pavilion, that is, he became an assistant minister of the cabinet, but he continued to serve as his official position as Minister of the Ministry of Personnel in Nanjing. Lu Jiude was also named Eunuch Bingbi, the Superintendent of Ceremonies, and continued to perform his duties as the eunuch guarding Nanjing.
Emperor Chongzhen also responded to Zhang Pu's memorial when he was still on errands in the south of the Yangtze River, commending him for his courage in knowing his mistakes, correcting them, and daring to break his oath. He published it in the Di Bao and called on officials from all over the country to learn from Zhang Pu. , used to admit mistakes, be a famous official who is honest and upright, and be famous for generations to come!
At the same time, he also personally wrote an article criticizing the bad custom of human relations in officialdom. It is also responsible for the Metropolitan Procuratorate to evaluate the interactions between officials and come up with specific regulations to eliminate hotbeds of corruption.
These things have little bearing on the people of Ming Dynasty. However, it caused a great shock to the Ming Dynasty officialdom.
In particular, the Metropolitan Procuratorate gave specific measures, which were reported to Emperor Chongzhen for approval and promulgated to the world. For example, officials were not allowed to treat guests to dinner, visit brothels, invite prostitutes to accompany them, and were not allowed to collect anything worth more than ten taels of silver under any pretext. Stuff etc. All these things have a great impact on the daily life of officials. As a result, the business of brothels and restaurants, places where people live, eat, drink and have fun, has plummeted.
If this matter had happened in the past, even if it could be promulgated nationwide, it would probably be nothing more than a piece of paper.
However, the prestige of Emperor Chongzhen is no longer the same as before.
The increase in prestige brought about by consecutive battles and victories, the increase in prestige brought about by disaster relief and disaster prevention, the ability to observe and judge people's minds, and even the ability to deduce some myths, all greatly frightened the officialdom. Moreover, the iron-bloodedness and strength he had shown since taking charge of the army in person made the officials of the Ming Dynasty not dare to do things that were both obedient and treacherous.
Zhang Pu's incident triggered the rectification of the Ming Dynasty's officialdom, which was in full swing; at the same time, Emperor Chongzhen's rectification of the factory guards was also underway again. On the one hand, Wang Chengen, the admiral of the East Factory, and Li Ruolian, the commander of the Jinyiwei, were ordered to conduct self-examinations on their respective subordinates. Those who had meritorious service would be promoted and those who had delinquency would be punished and allowed to report. Among them, Jiang Dong, the stall owner next to Zhang Pu, became famous after Zhang Pu's incident. Emperor Chongzhen specially promoted him to be the manager of the East Factory, and he stayed with him and was responsible for the internal supervision of the East Factory.
