Volume 3: Confrontation! The Run of Civilization Chapter 545: Zongfan is an ATM
"I have three suggestions for the problem of widespread disasters and reduced grain production in the northern provinces."
"Your Majesty, please give us your instructions."
"First , we should increase our grain purchases. However, I heard that many places in the south have suffered from floods this year. At the same time, in order to avoid buying too much grain in the south, which would cause grain prices in the southern provinces to soar, our annual grain purchase focus should be on the Southeast Asian countries."
"I am preparing to report this matter to the emperor later. Since the emperor has mentioned it, I will first talk about the Nanyang situation."
Wang Shaozheng stood up again and said, "As the emperor said, the Ministry of Revenue also plans to focus on buying grain from the countries in Southeast Asia. However, because Fuguo, Guiguo and even Japan have all experienced a reduction in grain production. Therefore, the above countries are buying grain from the Southeast Asian countries, so that the Southeast Asian countries are raising the price. Take Zhou and Tang, the two countries that currently export the most grain in Southeast Asia, as an example. In the fifth year of Tianqi, the offshore price of grain in the two countries was four silver cents per stone. In the sixth year, it was five silver cents. In the seventh year, which is this year, it has risen to eight silver cents. The Ministry of Revenue estimates that if next year is still a disaster year, our Ming mainland will need to purchase 13 million stones of grain from abroad to be safe. If the price of grain continues to rise, the financial pressure on the Ministry of Revenue will be too great."
"How dare you!" The speaker was Xiong Tingbi. "When I was in charge of Nanyang, how dare these vassal states do this? Chen Shiji's courtesy name is Kuanren, and he really lives up to his name. He is too lenient to these vassal states!"
"Your Majesty, the Grand Secretary, the Ministry of Revenue has negotiated with the Governor-General of Central and Southern China on this matter. Chen Zhijun said that the price of eight silver coins per stone is already the price that the Governor-General's Office of Central and Southern China has repeatedly suppressed to the countries of Southeast Asia."
"Dong~Dong~", the sound of fingers tapping on the table sounded again, and when the ministers heard this sound, they knew that the emperor was thinking habitually again. So everyone stopped talking to him for the time being, and instead started discussing with each other.
Looking at the noisy meeting hall, Fang Zhenghua, who was sitting behind Zhu Youdong and was responsible for taking notes, curled his lips and did not care: The emperor cannot hear the outside noise at this time, so it would be better to let the ministers discuss it.
As time travelers, Zhu Youdong and Philip actually have a lot in common when it comes to governing a country.
For example, they all knew that to develop industry in this era, especially heavy industry, the first thing needed was original start-up capital.
As for the Ming Dynasty, thanks to the fact that the country had been in economic surplus for thousands of years, the wealth accumulated by the people was extremely astonishing. Therefore, Zhu Youdong took advantage of the situation and supported big businessmen to enter the real industry. Later, after the light industry was developed and tax revenue increased, the state invested heavily, the army ensured security, and equipped with capable officials to focus on the development of heavy industry.
As for Spain, it relied on the gold and silver from its American colonies to complete its original capital accumulation, which was used as start-up capital for industrial development.
After a large number of factories are built, the products produced must be sold. According to the theory of surplus value, due to the existence of profits, the wages of all workers in a factory are definitely not enough to buy the products produced by the factory. This is true for every factory, so overproduction is inevitable.
In order to eliminate this overproduction and avoid economic crisis, one must either exploit the farmers of one's own country or open up foreign markets and use the hard-earned money of the people of other countries to supplement one's own income.
Here, Zhu Youdong and Philip both chose the latter path.
After the Ming Dynasty defeated the Japanese-Thai alliance and revived the tribute system with itself as the core, the entire Greater East Asia became a dumping ground for Ming Dynasty industrial products. Spain, due to its lack of a centralized tradition, could only suck blood from European countries through a loose European Union.
On the surface, it seems that Ming Dynasty has the upper hand in this regard. But in fact, Spain not only sucked blood from the EU countries, but also from the Americas. At the same time, in order to prevent the EU countries from being sucked too badly and causing the alliance to collapse, they also helped them establish colonies in Africa, so that their allies could suck blood from Africa while being sucked by them.
Therefore, although the population of Spain is less than 20 million, only one seventh of that of Ming Dynasty, the fiscal revenue of the Spanish government is comparable to that of Ming Dynasty or even slightly higher. The root cause is that Spain sucks blood much more ruthlessly than Ming Dynasty.
However, the Ming Dynasty could not be too ruthless in sucking blood from the countries in East Asia and Southeast Asia: these countries did not have colonies as large as Africa to supplement their nutrition.
In fact, shortly after Chen Shiji took over as the Governor-General of Central South, he submitted a report to Zhu Youdong. This report cited a large amount of data and finally confirmed one point: the ruling foundation of the Zhou and Tang dynasties was not stable. There were many factors causing this instability, but the most important reason was that the quality of life of the Thai people under the rule of these two countries was much worse than that under the rule of Rajabhat Buddha.
The reason for the big difference is that in order to strengthen the control over the countries in Greater East Asia, Zhu Youdong only allowed these countries to develop agriculture and mining, and did not allow them to develop industry. With the rapid development of productivity in the Ming Dynasty, countless light industrial products entered the Zhou and Tang dynasties, making a lot of profits flow to the Ming Dynasty.
Therefore, in recent years, as grain prices have risen, Chen Shiji is in a dilemma: if he deliberately curbs grain prices, the already dissatisfied Southeast Asian countries will be even more dissatisfied. If he does not curb them, as an official of the Ming Dynasty, he feels that he has not fulfilled his responsibilities.
Zhu Youdong deeply agreed with Chen Shiji's report.
Of course, he knew clearly which ethnic group he belonged to and which ethnic group he should work for. Therefore, he would not feel guilty if the people of countries other than the Ming Dynasty in Greater East Asia were living in dire straits.
Besides, although he had repeatedly claimed that he hated racists before traveling through time, he did not like black uncles or the natives of Southeast Asia. In his opinion, when he needed more soldiers for a global war with Spain or the Ottomans in the future, he would rather use Mongolians, Jurchens, Japanese or even Koreans, and would not recruit soldiers from Southeast Asian countries.
It would be better for that place to just focus on growing crops, rubber and mining.
However, if he were to exploit the Southeast Asian countries now, how much support would the exhausted Southeast Asian countries be able to offer him when he went to global war with Spain or the Ottomans? Or, if he exploited them too much, would they rebel?
Therefore, we still have to give these guys some concessions. While helping Zhou, Tang and other countries to stabilize their rule, we also let these natives live a little better. In this way, they will have some assets, and they can squeeze out oil through deep pressing in the future.
"My fellow ministers." As soon as the emperor spoke, the meeting place immediately calmed down.
"Food must be imported in large quantities from the Southeast Asian countries. I will set a price. Within five years, the FOB price of each stone of grain shall not exceed eight silver cents. Starting from the sixth year, within the new five years, it shall not exceed one silver dollar. If any prince cannot do this, I will let him return to Ming and guard the mausoleum in Fengyang. If any vassal state cannot do this, I will let this country change its royal family."
"Your Majesty, what you said is exactly the magnanimous demeanor of the leader of our Ming Dynasty. We obey your order."
"Okay, then I'll say the second thing. We've bought the grain, but we can't just distribute it directly for disaster relief. We still have to follow the old rules, using work in lieu of relief. We don't support lazy people in the Ming Dynasty. It's not the fault of the disaster victims that the land has no harvest because God doesn't give us face. But the court gave you a job opportunity and you didn't want it, but insisted on lying in bed and eating for free. Humph, there's no such thing."
"Your Majesty." The Minister of Works Xu Guangqi stood up and said, "Now, the Beijing-Tianjin, Beijing-Zhangjiakou, Beijing-Luoyang, and Datong-Taiyuan railways of our Ming Dynasty have all been completed. Currently, only the Luoyang-Xi'an and Luojinan railways are still under construction... and the people on these two railways are some of the military households who were transferred during the process of military households becoming civilian households... In short, what I mean is that the number of jobs that can be provided on the construction site is extremely limited."
"Hahaha, Mr. Xu, I don't want these two railways to solve all the disaster victims. Let's put it this way. The court has a lot of surplus in recent years. Take it all out and build railways across the country. The Ministry of Industry should come up with a plan to build at least ten new railways. Among them, the railways from Shaanxi to Gansu and Gansu to Xinjiang are the top priorities. In addition, water conservancy projects across the country, such as ditches in the north and flood control dams in the south, should all be dredged or reinforced!"
As the Minister of Works, Xu Guangqi naturally agreed to such a request , saying that the officials of the Ministry of Works would work hard to come up with a plan as soon as possible. As for the Ministry of Revenue, Wang Shaozheng was not as irritable as Xu Honggang before. He sat on the stool and watched Xu Guangqi's high spirits. He was very angry for a long time, but after standing up, he opened his mouth and uttered the words "The Ministry of Revenue will do its best to cooperate with the Ministry of Works".
Hey, this Minister of Revenue is pretty good. I like such soft-hearted ministers.
Zhu Youdong, in a good mood, waved his hand to let Wang Shaozheng sit down, and pointed his finger at Zhang Shize: "The third thing, headed by the six major newspapers, all departments of the court and government offices at all levels must make every effort to preach to the people and tell them what the Little Ice Age weather is all about and how many years it will probably last. Tell them that the reduction in grain production and frequent natural disasters in recent years are purely natural phenomena. Humph, the connection between heaven and man, the Donglin Party members didn't talk about this stuff after they went to Japan, only those corrupt scholars are still holding on to this stuff! Zhang Shize, in addition to guiding and preaching in a positive way in the newspaper, and telling the people this truth, you must also set up a column to refute those nonsense!"
"Yes, I accept your order."
