Volume 1: Birth! Seven time travelers Chapter 149: Planning Ahead of Time
The news of resuming trade with Japan and expecting to earn at least one million taels of silver from Japan every year finally pulled Zhu Youdong out of the depressed mood he had been in recent months.
There was no other reason. A few months ago, Yuan Keli took Cao Huachun and others to Fujian, and the news they brought back was simply shocking.
Fujian has eight prefectures and one state. In the 37th year of Wanli (1609), it was reported that the casualties caused by heavy rains in the whole province were 100,000, and the loss of 2 million mu of arable land. After Yuan Keli and others arrived in Fujian, they asked the Fujian Provincial Administration Secretary, which prefecture suffered the greatest loss? The Provincial Administration Secretary replied that it was Fuzhou Prefecture, and then asked the Fuzhou prefect, which county suffered the greatest loss? The Fuzhou prefect said it was Houguan County...
After checking layer by layer, it was found that Houguan County reported 13,700 deaths and 120,000 mu of farmland loss. Then Yuan Keli said: "Mingshou, where are all the dead victims buried? You can't just pile up graves one by one, there must be mass graves, right? Because of landslides, mudslides and so on, your county has lost so much farmland, but I see that there are some mountains in the northwest of your Houguan County, and the rest of the place is along the river and the coast. Even those mountains in the northwest have good vegetation, and it can't be seen that they have been destroyed by mudslides. May I ask where the farmland lost in your county is?
After the lid was lifted, the rest was very simple. In March 1610, Yuan Keli wrote a report signed by the Nanjing Ministry of Revenue to Zhu Youdong: After investigation, it was found that the entire Fujian province was indeed hit by heavy rain in May of the 37th year of the Wanli reign, but the affected areas were mainly the mountainous prefectures and counties in the northwest of Fujian, such as Jianning, Shaowu, and Yanping. Although the casualty figures reported by these places were slightly exaggerated, they were basically true.
The coastal prefectures and counties that suffered the least were Fuzhou, Xinghua, Quanzhou, etc. The reported casualty figures were basically fabricated.
In short, after careful investigation, the actual death toll in Fujian Province due to the rain disaster last year was about 7,000, and the loss of arable land in the mountainous areas was approximately between 30,000 and 50,000 acres.
Finally, Yuan Keli concluded that this was a conspiracy! The participants included provincial officials such as the Fujian Provincial Government Secretary and the Provincial Procuratorate, as well as the chief officials of prefectures and counties in the southeastern coastal areas. Their main purpose was to fill in the loopholes that had appeared in the Yellow Book in the past decade...
After receiving the report, Zhu Youdong was too lazy to get angry. He just wrote a private letter to Yuan Keli: "Investigate thoroughly!" Then he asked Zhang Yicheng and Zhang Shize to make a detailed report on the truth of the disaster in Fujian in Jinling Daily.
Although they didn't curse or throw things, as a monarch, how could he be in a good mood when he met such a group of ministers? So although the young master of Nanhua Palace was easy to serve in his personal life, the eunuchs and palace maids were not without vision. Everyone knew that the young master was in a bad mood these days, so everyone was extremely careful in doing things. This depressing atmosphere in the entire Nanhua Palace was not relieved until Inukai Touji returned to Nanjing.
However, this slightly improved mood was soon broken by the arrival of a person.
"Your Highness, I, Chen Shiji, pay my respects to you."
"Hey, Kuanren, we haven't seen each other for more than three years, right? How have you been these years? Are your parents in good health?"
"Thank you for your concern, Your Highness. My father and mother are both in good health. It has been three years and ten months since we last met in Beijing. I miss Your Highness very much."
In May 1606, Zhu Youdong summoned Chen Shiji, the then magistrate of Xianyang County, and showed great interest in this official who dared to confront the mine supervisor and had a good understanding of the people's livelihood in Shaanxi.
In Zhu Youdong's opinion, if he wants to win the competition among time travelers, he must make drastic reforms to the Ming Dynasty. Although he can only make various preparations for the economy, military, and public opinion due to his current status, the actual operation will take some time. But in any case, when that day comes, he will need a large number of talents.
Some of these talents can be found through Fangshan School: some students in Fangshan School are indeed talented in eight-part essays, and Zhu Youdong arranged for them to take the imperial examination and become Jinshi. In addition to Fangshan School, the existing officials of the Ming Dynasty should also be strived for and united.
Chen Shiji was a courageous and capable man, not very old, and the two parties had a good relationship. So why shouldn't he fight for him?
During these three years, after Chen Shiji's term as county magistrate expired, he was directly promoted to Tongpan of Xi'an Prefecture under the care of then-Lord Shen Li. After serving as Tongpan for more than two years, Zhu Youdong transferred him to Mubang Prefecture as prefect through Li Sancai and Wen Tiren.
This is to include him in Zhu Youdong's core circle. Although Chen Shiji is a strong leader, he is definitely not a person without emotional intelligence. After receiving the transfer order from the court, he was very smart and did not go directly from Shaanxi to Yunnan via Sichuan. Instead, he took a detour to Nanjing to thank Zhu Youdong and ask for advice.
"Kuanren, it was my idea to arrange for you to go to Mubang. It is one of my money bags, so you must keep an eye on it when you go there."
"Your Highness, rest assured. Sun Kaiyang has created Mubang Prefecture and his name will go down in history. This is something that we, the officials, admire extremely. What makes us admire even more is that during the years that Sun Kaiyang has been in charge of Mubang, Mubang has prospered. Even I, who was in Shaanxi, have heard about it. So, Your Highness, please rest assured that when I go to Mubang, I will definitely follow Sun Kaiyang's rules and will never easily change Mubang's existing practices for the sake of so-called personal achievements."
"Well, I feel relieved that you have such an idea. But this time when you go to Mubang, in addition to securing my purse, you also have a very important mission."
"Your Highness, please give your instructions."
"Myanmar, support him and make him a barrier for our Ming Dynasty against the rising Siam."
After Zhu Youdong explained Siam's recent situation in detail, Chen Shiji nodded calmly: "I understand. Your Highness, please rest assured that I will do my best."
"I will send you a captain of the Imperial Guard in the second half of this year. His name is Xu Xianchun, and he has been lurking in Siam for more than three years. In addition, the garrison in Mubang is Liu Jing's subordinate, and they are all our own people."
"Your Highness has made such thorough arrangements that I am more confident that I can complete the task."
After talking about Mubang, Zhu Youdong smiled and said, "Kuanren, in the past two years, there has been very little tea from Huguang entering Shaanxi, right?"
"Your Highness." Chen Shiji was obviously excited when he said this: "Your Highness still has a way to bring Huguang tea away through sea trade. Now, tea planting in Shaanxi has slowly recovered. Whether it is ordinary people or local military households, their income has increased a lot."
"Well, that's good." Zhu Youdong was also very relieved to hear this: "Shaanxi is dry and rainy, and the soil fertility has been depleted for thousands of years. In fact, we should plant more potatoes, sweet potatoes, and corn..."
"After receiving instruction from Your Highness three and a half years ago, I vigorously promoted potato planting after returning to Xianyang. During my tenure in Xi'an Prefecture, I promoted potato than three million mu of new wasteland has been reclaimed for planting potatoes, sweet potatoes and corn. In terms of average per mu yield, potatoes have the highest yield, about 33 to 35 dan. The per mu yield of sweet potatoes varies greatly, with some having dozens of dan and some only more than ten dan. For corn, it is generally around 15 dan. In short, these high-yield crops are much higher than the previous yield of four or five dan or even two or three dan of wheat in Shaanxi..."
"Hmm." Upon hearing such satellite figures, Zhu Youdong's frown did not relax at all: "The yield per mu has increased so much, and the tea-horse trade has been restored. The people of Shaanxi must have a lot more money. However, if my guess is correct, the government at all levels in Shaanxi has also levied a lot more on the local people, right?"
"Your Highness is very wise!" Chen Shiji knelt down very straightforwardly. "Speaking of which, when Your Highness first met me more than three years ago, I had just started my career and thought too simply about many things. Now it seems that if this official style is not corrected, no matter how much Your Highness does for the people of Shaanxi, the benefits they can get will be limited."
Among so many officials in the Ming Dynasty, it is estimated that Hai Rui was the only one who relied entirely on salary for his livelihood.
The one who caused this situation was, of course, Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming Dynasty. He set the salaries of princes extremely high and those of officials extremely low. In short, if Ming Dynasty officials really had to rely on their salaries to make a living, they would have lived a very miserable life.
High salaries may not necessarily lead to corruption, but low salaries will definitely lead to corruption. Moreover, since the entire Ming officialdom almost relied on gray income or even corruption and bribery to make a living, the actual ethics of Ming officials over the past few hundred years were extremely low.
This also created a pathological phenomenon: the lower the integrity of the officials, the louder they shouted about morality. Since the officials of the Ming Dynasty generally had no integrity, the Ming Dynasty's officialdom apparently attached the most importance to morality...
In short, to correct the official style, we must first reform the official salary system. And this matter, at least for now, is not something Zhu Youdong can touch.
Therefore, he had to work harder and try his best to find more hair for the people of Shaanxi. In short, when the people have money in their pockets, you officials will be more greedy, but no matter what, the people can always fill their stomachs with what they have left.
