Chapter 16 Hai Cao

This is also a historical problem.

When the sea was opened, everyone's focus was not on who was in charge of the customs. But after having money, Tobe's eyes are hot, but Ouchi's eyes are also hot.

Wang Zhen has already fought several lawsuits with Liu Zhongshi.

The fight is a question of ownership of customs.

In the end, it was the Empress Dowager who ruled that the customs silver should be classified as the inner treasury and sent eunuchs to lift it.

Of course, Li Shimian is old and authoritative, even if he sends a eunuch, he is just a layman.

To be honest, if there was no Li Shimian, Xin'an Customs might not have so much customs silver. Because there was no fixed amount of this customs silver before, there was too much room for his hands to go up and down.

As long as you reduce it a little bit and fill your pocket, it will be enough to eat.

But Li Shimian is very incorruptible. Didn't take a penny. Unless a little is spent on renovating the docks, building warehouses, etc., the rest is in the account, which is a miraculous growth.

Even the Empress Dowager left Zhu Qizhen more than 30 million taels of silver, including one or two million customs silver.

It's just that there is more and more customs silver, and Li Shimian, as a scholar, naturally wants to attribute this source of wealth to the household department. It's just that Zhu Qizhen refused to let go.

It's not just Zhu Qizhen who needs money.

As the Empress Dowager said, how much money you have in the inner treasury is directly related to the authority of the emperor. Similarly, Zhu Qizhen has greater expectations for the customs.

At the very least, Zhu Qizhen didn't want to have just one Son of Heaven South Library, instead of advancing the Ming Dynasty to the Ocean Age.

Therefore, this matter is not negotiable here in Zhu Qizhen, and Zhu Qizhen came up with the most handy move, that is, Wang Gu talked about him left and right, and said: "Reality, I have something I want to ask you, which is related to the life and death of hundreds of millions of people in Beizhili. ”

When Li Shimian heard this, he couldn't care about anything else, and said, "Your Majesty, please speak." ”

Zhu Qizhen told Li Shimian all the financial crisis that Wang Zhi told him, but did not say Wang Zhi's solution.

Li Shimian listened to it and immediately thought about it.

People like Li Shimian are traditional scholars, known as generous and responsible for the world. It's the kind of person who can save the people of the world if he dies me, and he commits suicide without blinking his eyebrows.

He may not have known that Zhu Qizhen was changing the topic.

But a gentleman can deceive him, and the question raised by Zhu Qizhen is obviously much more important than whether the customs silver is returned to the household department or to the interior.

Even if Li Shimian knew that Zhu Qizhen didn't want to talk, he didn't know. He asked, "Your Majesty, how about the ministers?" ”

Zhu Qizhen asked: "I know that Champa rice comes from the south, and it is said that in many places, it is three crops a year, I want to know, is it feasible to buy grain from overseas and ship it directly to Tianjin?" ”

Li Shimian pondered for a while and said, "Minister."

Don't dare to say anything, because Xin'an doesn't trade much grain, no, it should be said that there are very few. No one was willing to trade grain in Xin'an at all, at most it was used on ships. ”

Zhu Qizhen naturally knows that going to sea is to make money.

If it is a peaceful season, Guangdong naturally does not need grain, and transporting grain is simply a loss-making transaction.

"As for direct transportation from overseas to Tianjin, the minister does not know whether it is feasible or not."

"But the world has been peaceful for a long time, and the lowest price of grain is 300 wen and one stone, and the people are by no means without food, and this is especially true in the south. His Majesty's intentions are known to the ministers, and he wants to help Hebei with overseas grain. ”

"However, in the opinion of the ministers, overseas grain may not be available, but Guangdong grain is enough to rely on."

"Now it is only the first month, and there is still a period of time before the south, and the minister is willing to go south under the starry night, and rush to Guangzhou within ten days, and buy grain on the spot with the silver deposited by the customs. Although Guangxi has used troops and Guangdong's grain has increased somewhat, it will never exceed 500 wen per stone. There are also one tael of silver and two stones of rice. ”

"One million taels is enough to buy two million stone of grain to solve the urgent needs of the imperial court."

"As long as Your Majesty believes in the minister, the minister is willing to guarantee his life, and when the south is prosperous, it is the time when the minister transports grain from Tianjin."

When Zhu Qizhen heard this, he was moved in his heart.

Li Shimian is actually not sure about this matter.

He had only been in Xin'an for a few years, and according to him, he had never actually been to sea, and there were no ready-made ships on Xin'an's side. In the past, I had to look for a boat.

And the time when the south came, it is not too early to say that it is not too late.

Li Shimian rushed from Beijing to Guangzhou, and he usually walked for two months, but now he has to rush back within ten days, which is simply desperate.

For the sake of a possibility, he did not hesitate to sacrifice his life for it.

How many such ministers can there be. Zhu Qizhen dared to say that Li Shimian had never thought about his future at this moment. He didn't think about what kind of responsibility he would have to bear if something went wrong.

It's just that he thinks about this one thing, and he is the most suitable.

Then do it.

The Empress Dowager selected Li Shimian as Zhu Qizhen's first teacher from almost all officials, so naturally she did not make a mistake.

Zhu Qizhen was a little unbearable for a moment, a sixty-six-year-old man like this. Because after all, this is only a possibility, although the four years of orthodoxy seem to have ended in summer and autumn, and there has been no rain for more than three months in the whole winter.

But maybe spring will come, and there will be rain.

What Wang Zhi said is only a possibility.

Let Li Shimian use his life to suppress such a possibility, Zhu Qizhen couldn't bear it.

But in an instant, Zhu Qizhen thought of one thing, that is, shipping.

Zhu Qizhen has thought about shipping grain more than once. We can't let all of Beijing's grain be tied to a canal. What he does is more gradual

Enter.

For example, the golden silk nanmu was changed to Liaodong big wood.

Most of the big trees in Liaodong were discharged into the sea and then shipped into Beijing. It is to tie the wood together, make a wooden row, and enter the sea along the Yalu River or the Liao River, and after entering the sea, the boat will be dragged to Tianjin.

This way, save labor and effort, and after arriving in Tianjin, you can also take the canal. When we arrive in Tongzhou, it will not be far from Beijing.

This section of the sea is enough for Zhu Qizhen to increase the number of sailors.

With this reason, if you want to come to Beijing to contact Liaodong, you can take more waterways. First develop the sailor in the bathtub of the Bohai Sea, and then develop step by step in the future.

In short, although shipping is important, it is still relatively low in Zhu Qizhen's list.

After all, there are priorities.

But now, he found a great opportunity.

The food crisis in the core area of the Ming Dynasty today is not that the imperial court has no money, but that the imperial court has no food. Even the imperial court may not be short of food, it is just nervous.

The more important problem is that it can't be shipped.

There is a bottleneck in the capacity of the canal, especially after the Xuande period was rated at four million stones, it has long been conservative, and it is impossible to transport millions of stone grain within half a year.

Because this is a system project that affects the whole body, it is not something that you can add immediately if you say how much you add.

At this time, if Li Shimian can transport Guangdong's grain to Tianjin by sea, then Zhu Qizhen can justifiably retain a shipping channel in case of emergency.

Now it is easy to establish this channel, because although Zheng He, Wang Jinghong and others are all dead, the 30,000 people who followed Zheng He to the West have not died. Let them form a fleet, it's still okay. The ships are ready-made, and although they have been allocated to the coastal guards, the things are still there, and they are just organized.

Why choose Li Shimian.

Because the biggest problem in this matter is not ability, but thought.

The grain in the Nanjing area is in the warehouses of various government offices, and if he wants to transfer grain, Zhu Qizhen does not first persuade the six cabinet departments, but he can't say anything. Because of such movements, even in Nanjing, it is impossible to hide from people.

But Guangdong is different.

Guangdong is remote after all.

Zhu Qizhen thought about it and felt that even if there was no drought, there was nothing wrong with letting Li Shimian transport grain once, even if the government and the opposition did not allow it this time, it could be regarded as setting a precedent.

It will be easy to have a second time in the future. After the second and third time, everyone will get used to it.

Zhu Qizhen thought of this, even if he couldn't bear it anymore, he had to do it, he saluted Li Shimian and said, "I will entrust the millions of people in Beizhili to Mr. Yu." ”

Li Shimian suddenly felt his blood boiling, and said, "The minister obeys the order." ”