Volume 2: Soaring! The Overlord of the Region Chapter 295 Zhu Youdong's Adjustment
"Your Highness, Xiong Tingbi is so bold! Yes, Yunnan is a little far away, and sometimes you have to give certain powers to the local chief officer. But for someone like Xiong Manzi, he sent more than 20,000 reinforcements directly when a mere Xuanweisi asked for help! And among them was Kunming Town! Although I am not familiar with military affairs, I also know that the predecessor of this Kunming Town was the Kuandian Guard created by Your Highness himself, which is known as the two most powerful troops in our Ming Dynasty together with the Henghai Guard! Such elite troops were sent out like this. Humph, if Xiong Manzi had not accepted a huge bribe from Myanmar, I would never believe it."
After the State Council meeting was reopened, Zhu Youdong first handed Xiong Tingbi's letter to the ministers attending the meeting. Unexpectedly, Fang Congzhe, who was the first to read the letter, jumped up immediately.
To be honest, the first minister after Li Sancai was not very capable and skillful in handling affairs. However, the current leader of the Zhejiang Party had two good points. First, he was soft and did not like to be tough with Zhu Youdong. Second, the tradition of the Zhejiang Party was to consider the interests of the country. Therefore, when Zhu Youdong checked the household registration and rebuilt the Yellow Book, the first minister strongly supported him and made many efforts for this.
I didn't expect that even such a good-tempered person would get so angry after reading Xiong Tingbi's letter.
Lao Fang had no choice but to jump.
After so many years of the Grand Duke's supervision, the overall situation of the country has been getting better day by day: externally, in recent years, the Jurchens have been broken into six pieces and relocated to the cold and icy Songnen Plain, and the Mongols in the north have also been severely damaged. It can be said that although there are still border troubles, the urgent military information that can make the Prime Minister frown is almost not seen.
With the external situation cleaned up, internal problems were solved one by one. Wasn't the biggest problem of the Ming Dynasty before the lack of money? What about now? In addition to the 100 million silver dollars from the sale of salt mines, after the salt tax, currency reform and the establishment of banks. The annual income of the Beijing Ministry of Revenue of the Ming Dynasty is now stable at around 23 million yuan, and with the completion of the household registration and the reconstruction of the Yellow Book, it can be imagined that the country's agricultural tax can be much higher. If the in-kind tax can be completely abolished in the future and replaced by a monetary tax, it is possible that the country can get more than 12 million yuan every year from the agricultural tax alone.
Therefore, the Ministry of Revenue, which had money, could increase the salaries of officials and no longer delay the payment of military salaries to the military garrisons. Even the great locust plague that swept across northern China this year was barely borne by the country.
How many years have passed? Since the Jiajing period, the country has had endless problems, and various drawbacks have become increasingly apparent. Although Zhang Juzheng managed to rectify the situation a little, the three major expeditions of the Wanli period emptied the treasury again. The difficult days continued until the crown prince became regent, and Prime Minister Fang had not received a salary for many years!
In short, in Fang's opinion, this is the best time for the country in the past hundred years. Moreover, the crown prince is still young. It is foreseeable that in the next few decades, many problems of the Ming Dynasty will be solved one by one, and the situation of Renzong and Xuanzong's reign or even Yongle's prosperity will reappear soon.
Therefore, Fang's philosophy over the years has been to focus on domestic affairs first! For example, after the salary of officials has increased, we must start to fight corruption vigorously - this is another tough battle, and we must concentrate on it.
What the hell are you thinking, Xiong Tingbi? What does it have to do with us if Burma and Siam fight like pigs? It's only because you are the teacher of the crown prince, otherwise, I will impeach you personally!
The Prime Minister had such an attitude, and most of the other ministers were also dissatisfied with Xiong Tingbi's handling of the matter. Xu Honggang, who was in charge of the money, was so angry that his beard was flying.
Alas, it is so painful not to be able to expose myself. I don't know how the King of Siam persuaded his subjects to attack my Ming Dynasty.
With a light sigh, Zhu Youdong took out Xu Xianchun's letter and circulated it to his ministers.
"Ridiculous! Have all these officials in Yunnan gone mad? What is Siam? A tiny country! Xu Xianchun actually said that their king was just pretending to attack Burma, but was actually planning to attack the Ming Dynasty? Commander Tian, is this how all the thousand households of your Jinyiwei do things?"
"Captain Xu served the Crown Prince together with me. You don't have to worry about his ability to do things. As for the content of this letter, I don't know the situation in Yunnan, so I can't say more for the time being."
Alas, even Tian Ergeng did not dare to take the blame for Xu Xianchun, which shows how little these officials of the Ming Dynasty took Siam seriously, and how little they wanted to respond to Myanmar's request for help.
Fortunately, after all these years, I have acquired the power of a dictatorship.
After making up his mind, Zhu Youdong signaled, and Fang Zhenghua behind him knocked the gavel, and the meeting room quickly became quiet.
"My Lords, Siam's invasion of Burma is indeed not a big hindrance to our Ming Dynasty. However, I think Captain Xu's analysis is not to be disbelieved."
"Your Highness!"
"Hey, everyone, please listen to me."
"Yes, I am sorry. Please continue, Your Highness."
"After all, the Ming Dynasty is the suzerain of East Asia. We cannot ignore such incidents of our vassal states, otherwise it will undermine the dignity of the Celestial Empire. Therefore, Grand Master of the Imperial Court, the Ministry of Rites must send envoys to Siam as soon as possible to tell them to immediately stop their invasion of the Ming Dynasty's Burmese Xuanwei Division.
In addition, the Ministry of Rites will also send envoys to Annan to warn them. Tell their two powerful ministers that no matter how they fight internally, if Siam attacks, they must join forces to resist the enemy. Otherwise, the Ming Dynasty will once again send hundreds of thousands of heavenly troops to Annan as it did during the reign of Emperor Chengzu. "
"Yes, I obey your command."
"Here at the Ministry of War, Grand Marshal, please send an order to the general of Zhaoqing Town to have them send warships and relevant surveying personnel south to Cambodia to investigate the hydrology and geography of the Mekong Delta, especially the timing of the ebb and flow of the tide, the distribution of reefs and harbors, etc."
"Your Highness, do you really want to? Logically speaking, I don't care about the purse strings, so I definitely support the use of troops. But from the perspective of the country, we still have so many disaster victims to provide relief. Your Highness, this is indeed not a good time to mobilize troops!"
"I am very relieved that you are concerned about the country and the people. However, the matter of Siam is really not that simple. And, Sima, I have news that Siam and Japan have formed an alliance."
"Ah?! There is such a thing? Commander Tian?"
"Grand Marshal, my Imperial Guard is only one of your Highness's information channels, not the only one."
"Your Highness? Is this true?"
"True, absolutely true."
How could it not be true? The King of Siam personally went to Japan twice, why not join the alliance? Did he really go there to eat sushi?
"Well...if these two small countries really have evil ambitions, we should think carefully about it."
"Yes." Zhu Youdong nodded and said, "My lords, there is no need to talk about the relationship between Ming and Japan. The orphans of the Toyotomi family are still living on our Taihu Lake. If Siam and Japan really form an alliance and invade Ming at the same time, it will be really annoying."
"Hehe, your highness is right. But it's just a little annoying."
"So, although we have a lot of things going on in the country right now, we still need to make corresponding preparations. Grand Marshal, please send another order to Ma Chengzhao in Sichuan, asking him to lead 10,000 Sichuan soldiers to Yunnan to take over the defense of Kunming Town!"
