Zhu Youxiao was interested when he heard this, Zhu Youxiao was not interested in wine, and he didn't dare to be interested in dishes, Zhu Youxiao was not the emperor of cooks.

In fact, if Zhu Youxiao had a choice, he would not be so interested in carpenter work.

Zhu Youxiao loves to use his brain and hands, and in summary, he is interested in playing, especially in the way of play that needs to be thought about.

A typical engineering man, Lord Wei already knows the emperor's interests and hobbies very well.

"In a short period of time, Wei Aiqing's wine is famous all over the world, and it is really a genius, Father-in-law Wei, who passed on the decree and set the four special wines recommended by Wei Aiqing to me as tribute wine! And promote it everywhere. Zhu You proofread Wei Zhongxian.

Wei Bao was overjoyed when he heard this, this is to help himself make money, the emperor issued a holy decree to promote something, where else dare to stop it?

The most important thing is that the Wei family's Tiandihui business is a large supermarket, a logistics channel, and everything is sold, not just wine.

The emperor promoted the Wei family's wine, which was equivalent to opening up circulation channels for other commodities of the Tiandihui firm.

Don't look at the face of the monk to see the Buddha, the emperor said that the things of the Tiandi Society are good, who dares to say that it is not good, the emperor said that the things of the Tiandi Society can be sold everywhere, who dares not to sell them?

Originally, Zhu Youxiao had inscribed a plaque for the Tiandihui firm, but the inscription of the plaque was not the same as helping to promote the goods.

Wei Zhongxian was a little embarrassed, and he already had a deep defense against Wei Bao in his heart, but the emperor had already spoken, and he couldn't disobey it, so he had to bite the bullet and say, "The old slave will do it immediately." ”

"What are you doing, aren't the cabinets here, if everyone has no opinions, let's issue a holy decree today, good things should be vigorously promoted, and I still have the power to promote a kind of wine, right?" Zhu Youxiao said.

Wei Zhongxian and a group of cabinet ministers were taken aback, although the rhythm of the emperor's speech was difficult to grasp, and many words were blurted out, but the words sounded a bit heavy.

The imperial power of the Ming Dynasty is supreme, not to mention changing places to promote a kind of wine, promoting a hundred kinds, a thousand kinds, as long as your emperor is happy, it is okay.

After the meal, Zhu Youxiao asked the cabinet ministers to leave first, leaving Wei Bao to accompany him.

While the two of them were doing carpenter work, Zhu Youxiao asked about Wei Bao's Tiandihui business name.

Wei Bao secretly thought that the emperor seemed to know my situation very well, and he didn't hide it, and everything was told the truth.

It's just a vague indication that the Tiandihui business is not profitable at all, firstly, the year is not good, all industries are depressed, and the other is that he adheres to the principle of doing business and not exploiting the people.

"Your Majesty, don't hide it from Your Majesty, I plan to accept the Tiandihui business name next year." Wei Bao Road.

Zhu Youxiao was surprised: "Is business really so difficult?" ”

Wei Bao nodded, "It's not good." Many people can't even eat, can they cook well? ”

Wei Zhongxian, who was on the side, frowned, not knowing if Wei Bao wanted to sue him.

What Wei Zhongxian said to the emperor was that the balance of the world, the country and the people were safe, and the people were rich, but there were only a few small things in a few areas.

In fact, Wei Zhongxian and Wei Bao are very clear that the emperor is not as stupid as he seems, and Zhu Youxiao has his own news channels, not people who don't know anything.

It's just that many times, Zhu Youxiao doesn't want to bother, because Zhu Youxiao is actually a person who doesn't have much self-confidence, and he feels that he can't solve anything if he is upset, so it's better to leave it to Wei Zhongxian.

In the early years of the Apocalypse, Zhu Youxiao was full of ambition for a while, but he was injured by the court situation, and he was busy for a year or two, but he didn't gain anything, and he made himself more and more tired and unhappy.

Later, Zhu Youxiao simply didn't care about anything, and actually found that it seemed to be a little better than when he was diligent in government, so he simply didn't care about anything.

Zhu Youxiao didn't like to talk about the government and the situation in the world with the ministers, because the ministers preached a lot.

But Zhu Youxiao likes to talk to Wei Bao.

Because Wei Bao will not educate the emperor on how to do it.

Wei Bao always spoke up about the problem, and said that it was difficult to do, and said that it was already doing well.

Therefore, this is not the first time that Wei Bao has told the emperor about the general trend of the world.

Wei Zhongxian can also accept it.

Generally speaking, the economic problems of the Ming Dynasty are usually said to be due to the lack of precious metals in the Ming Dynasty, but in fact, the copper used to make base metal currency in the Ming Dynasty was also quite scarce.

The traditional concept of one tael of silver for one thousand coins was actually impossible for a long time even in the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

The Manchus maintained this exchange ratio until the middle and late Qianlong periods.

Therefore, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, there was a big problem, the manufacture of money used the source of raw materials.

In addition to being used to make money, copper was also used for a large number of firearms.

So this piece has a double consumption problem of copper.

Silver does not represent everything, although silver currency in the late Ming Dynasty assumed a considerable part of the copper currency status, but copper coins as a base metal currency is a very important part of daily relevant, this piece has been ignored for a long time.

"In May, one tael of silver was worth eight hundred and forty wen, and in June, it was eight hundred and twenty wen. As for what the shop sells, it only costs 7670 yuan."

This is the official silver and copper exchange ratio and market exchange ratio in the first year of Yongzheng.

The volatility of official prices lags behind the market.

What was the situation in the Ming Dynasty?

In the Ming Dynasty, one tael of silver was exchanged for 550 to 700 Wen.

Before and after the rise of Li Zicheng, under the operation of Chongzhen, the god of war in the coal mountain, the exchange ratio of silver and copper went to 1100 to 2200 Wen.

Because of the serious shortage of copper, the Ming court used lead money mixed with copper to make do with it, so it soon couldn't make do.

The problem of copper scarcity was particularly prominent at the end of the Ming Dynasty, when a large number of firearms were manufactured and replenished in need of copper, as well as currency, and the demand for currency was even greater under the development of the commodity economy.

The traditional Chinese concept of Yunnan copper development was in the Qing Dynasty, and Yunnan was on the front line at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and the copper production was not as good as in the middle of the Qing Dynasty.

In the Ming Dynasty, there was no source of a large amount of copper from outside, and the Qing people used to solve the copper shortage in Japan.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, China and Japan were at war, or potential war, and Japan attacked China's vassal states one after another in an attempt to establish its own "Tianxia Huayi".

During the Tokugawa period, it was the Ryukyus.

The Qing Dynasty began to send ships to Japan to buy copper in the Shunzhi year, and Kangxi basically relied on foreign copper, even if the three feudatories regained control of Yunnan, the import of copper to Yongzheng still accounted for more than sixty percent of the domestic copper.

The Qing Dynasty did not have the historical baggage of the two Japanese rebellions and the Korean Ryukyus, so they were naturally fearless, even if the owner of the copper ship was harassed in Japan, and even Japan did not care about openly asking for information about China.

The Japanese scolded the Qing people for being in charge of the official copper ships like slaves.

In order to have the opportunity to exchange and obtain copper goods to prevent the Manchus from harshly criticizing, the officials and businessmen of the Qing Dynasty colluded with each other to smuggle ordnance and armor to the Japanese, spread shipbuilding technology, find people to cross the sea to complete the formation training required by the Japanese, and even the martial arts of the Qing Dynasty went to Japan to teach bows and arrows, which was unimaginable and impossible in the Ming Dynasty.

The successive wars of the late Ming Dynasty exacerbated this vicious circle, which eventually led to economic collapse.

At that time, gold had not yet entered the field of currency circulation in China, and another copper coin system matched with silver currency simply disintegrated in the later period of Chongzhen.

It can be referred to before the Opium War, because of the outflow of silver, the phenomenon of silver being expensive and cheap.

It took the Qing court fifty or sixty years to double the value of silver and copper coins, and the economy of the Qing Dynasty could no longer stand it.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, under the coquettish operation of Zhu Youzhen, the god of war in the coal mountain, it only took a few years for the copper coin to depreciate three or four times.

If Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen's finances are not in difficulty, who else will be in financial difficulties.

If the Qing court is gone, the foreigners will see that they can't do it, and they will come forward to pick up the customs and continue the finances of the Manchu Dynasty.

Otherwise, the Manchus would have perished early, and the Manchus would basically die on this wave.

And why did the Qing Dynasty burn opium and start a war, because silver is expensive and cheap, and if it continues, the finance will die.

Zhu Youzhen's monetary system was much more intense than the opium collapse of the Qing court.

The monetary system in Zhu Youxiao's hands was a normal monetary system when it was handed over to Zhu Youjian.

It took Zhu Youzhen to double the exchange ratio from 550 to 650 in just four or five years.

The copper coins of the Qing Dynasty depreciated, and the value of the stable currency began to break 1,000 steadily from 1808, rising all the way, and it took 30 years to soar from 1,040 wen for one tael of silver in 1808 to 1,637.8 wen for one tael of silver in 1838.

At this time, the whole Qing Dynasty had already understood that it was time to lose their life if they did not ban smoking.

In the monetary system maintained by Zhu Youzhen, silver imports have been rising in the last few years of Zhu Youzhen's play.

Spain's so-called depletion of silver mines in the Americas has only fallen from its peak, and production is still huge.

The sharp decline in the flow of silver into China in the last few years had an impact on the fall of the Ming Dynasty, but the god of war had long since lost his life.

The reason for the decline was that the war had spread to China's coastal exporting provinces, and the reduction in silver imports did not have a decisive impact on China's monetary system, which had long since collapsed.

In fact, because of the excessive depreciation of copper coins, the accelerated import of silver had a positive effect on stabilizing the economy after the collapse of the copper coin system in 1632.

Because silver replaced a part of the copper coins into circulation.

The three salaries are increased, and the collection method of the additional payment is to discount the silver rather than the original color.

It would be meaningless to rank the taxes of the prefectures and prefectures of the country only on the basis of the three salaries and the higher pay.

Su Song is re-endowed, this is a well-known fact.

Before the three salaries were added, the average tax rate per mu was 0.12, unit: two per mu.

That's a cut above the national average.

In addition, the direction of fiscal and tax delivery in the Ming Dynasty can be divided into two parts: shipping and storage.

Among them, the main shipments are distributed to the household department and the inner warehouse.

In other words, in the Ming Dynasty, it was not only the household department and the yamen that had the right to collect taxes, but also the military department and the ministry of industry.

And the silver taels were only sent to the household.

In other words, it does not include the tax sent to the inner warehouse, other warehouse institutions and local retained taxes.

Take Suzhou Mansion as an example.

In the sixth year of Wanli, the total tax amount of Suzhou government was close to 900,000 taels if all the silver was converted.

These taxes can be roughly divided into the following six types: land tax, supply materials, banknote tariff, salt tax, commercial tax, and conscription into silver.

Among them, Tianfu is mainly divided into summer tax and autumn grain, and the average proportion of summer tax and autumn grain shipment in the Ming Wanli Dynasty is 57.2%.

However, in the sixth year of Wanli, Suzhou Prefecture shipped 40,626 stones of summer tax wheat, of which about 37.13% of the part has been converted into silver), and 13,038 stones of wheat were saved.

According to Hou Guanxiang's statistics, about 38.18% of the part of the autumn grain rice 1850607 stone has been converted into silver, and the rice 188287 stone has been preserved.

In addition to the physical tax, the summer tax after the conversion of silver, including wheat, agricultural silk, tax silk, etc., and autumn grain, including rice, horse grass, household salt, silver, etc.

In the sixth year of Wanli, the summer tax of silver shipped from Suzhou was 4981.75 taels, and the silver autumn grain was 257189.5 taels.

The above-mentioned in-kind tax revenue for shipments also far exceeds the proportion of 57.2%.

As for the destinations of these shipments, there are many kinds of grains, and there are institutions in Nanjing and Beijing that are responsible for receiving them, so these grains are largely not handled by the household warehouses.

The main function of the Tai storehouse is to store silver rather than grain.

In Ni Yuanlu's recital, the amount of silver handed over to the Tai warehouse by Suzhou Mansion in the sixteenth year of Chongzhen was 565518 taels.

This tax, of course, does not include the original Suzhou government's true colors.

Moreover, in the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, the amount of silver levied in Suzhou Mansion more than doubled compared with the sixth year of Wanli.

In the third year of Chongzhen, the enslavement of Songjiang Mansion constituted the true color of rice and wheat Fu, about 330,000 stones.

In the Ming Dynasty, there was a saying called "Southern Grain and Northern Servitude", which meant that the burden of grain was heavier in the southern servitude, and the burden of conscription was heavier in the north.

However, Wei Bao believes that the "service" of Songjiang Prefecture is heavier than the "grain".

In the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, the amount of silver paid by Songjiang to the household department under Ni Yuanlu was 232883 taels, which was equivalent to the field of silver converted into silver in Songjiang Mansion for three years of Chongzhen.

It can be seen that there are a lot of taxes in Songjiang Prefecture.

Only those who do not understand the finance of the Ming Dynasty will regard the late Ming Dynasty Tai Warehouse, the new salary warehouse, or the amount of silver in the left and right divisions of the soldiers as taxes in various places, and they typically don't know how the Ming Dynasty did taxes.

Have you received enough of the three salaries? It's almost never possible.

Because even if there is no three salaries, Jiangnan taxes may not be sufficient.

Jiangnan Fu was a financial problem that had plagued the Ming court for a long time since the 15th century.

The first peak of endowment in Jiangnan was in the Yongle Xuande period, in fact, as early as the Hongwu period, there was a trend of endowment in Suzhou Prefecture.

Between the twentieth year of Yongle and the first year of Hongxi, Suzhou Prefecture owed 3.92 million stone of grain.

In the fourth year of Xuande, Suzhou Mansion owed more than 7 million stones.

Since the 15th century, there are too many records of the Ming court exempting Jiangnan from servitude.

In the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, some prefectures and counties in the south of Zhili, Huai'an, Xuzhou, Luzhou, and Fengyang, were exempted from the reason, and then the Ming court took into account the hardships of Lishu and carried out the so-called "exemption" to some areas.

In fact, the areas that were exempted were basically the chassis lost by the Ming Dynasty, such as Henan, Shaanxi, Huguang, Jiangbei and other places.

An example is Henan Province, which is bounded by the Yellow River, and the state capitals in the south are all exempted, while the two prefectures of Zhangde and Weihui in the north are not a lot.

Miraculously, Nan Zhili, who is rich in the world, once again received more than 410,000 exemptions, which is equivalent to about one-seventh of its quota.

The meaning is obvious, the north is difficult, and I am also difficult here; Take less money elsewhere, and don't expect me to take more.

Huai'an Mansion and Xuzhou: Qing soldiers are slightly in the south. Shuyang and Ganyu in Huai'an Prefecture and Feng County in Xuzhou all suffered from the disaster of war.

In the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, Zhang Xianzhong attacked the Luzhou Mansion three times and fell into it.

During the fifteen years of Chongzhen, the main activity area of Zhang Xianzhong and the Fifth Battalion of the Revolutionary Left was in Anhui.

Jiangnan scholars and household departments have a special layer of regulations, that is, in the Ming Dynasty, there was an ancestral motto, that is, "Jiangnan people are not allowed to serve as official households".

The Jiangnan here not only includes Yingtian, Zhenjiang, Changzhou, Suzhou, Songjiang, Huzhou, Jiaxing, and Hangzhou, but also covers Jiangxi and Zhejiang provinces.

In fact, this ancestral precept was well implemented in the Ming Dynasty, and throughout the Ming Dynasty, the Jiangnan household department Shangshu counted it on one hand.

However, having said that, most of the officials in the household yamen were born in Jiangnan.

Ni Yuanlu, a native of Shaoxing, Zhejiang, happens to be a Jiangnan person in a broad sense.

The ban on Jiangnan people not being allowed to serve as officials and households was initially limited to Susong and Song, and later expanded to Jiangxi and Zhejiang provinces.

In other words, twenty-six years after Hongwu, there were only one and a half people who were born in Jiangnan and served as the secretary of the official household department, one was Ni Yuanlu, and half was Zhou Chen.

The reason why Zhou Chen is half is because his "Household Books" is a fictitious title, and he is not actually in charge of household affairs.

The things of the Ming Dynasty in the Chongzhen era, Wei Bao naturally can't say it according to history itself, so he can only mention it casually and simply in an expected tone.

Zhu Youxiao was very interested.

Zhu Youxiao is a smart person in the end, and after having a general understanding of the current situation, it is easy to understand Wei Bao's prediction.

Because Zhu Youxiao loves to use his brain, this kind of predictive affairs and affairs that require calculations, so he will be interested.

In the evening, the emperor left Wei Bao for dinner before letting Wei Bao out of the palace.

"Father-in-law Wei, do you think Wei Aiqing's proposal to open a few treaty ports and gather the Daming Sailor is not good?" Zhu Youxiao asked.

Wei Zhongxian knew that the emperor would definitely ask, and he had already thought about how to answer, "It's not bad, it's not good, just like Your Majesty said before, no one can guarantee that we will do better than the previous ancestors and ancestors, there is a risk, but you can give it a try." But who's going to give it a try? Looking at the entire imperial court, who has this ability. ”

Zhu Youxiao didn't have to think about it and said: "Wei Aiqing is very suitable, I like Wei Aiqing very much, and Wei Aiqing is indeed very talented." He did a good job in the capital, and laid off many redundant officials and redundant personnel for the imperial court, and got a lot of silver. North Zhili, Shandong, are well managed. Only then did he go to Liaodong, Liaodong couldn't win the old slave Nurhachi for many years, Wei Aiqing just went and beat a dead old slave down, this is not counted, and a Mongolian tribe of more than 100,000 people who also fought directly returned to the entire tribe. This is a prosperous scene, a rare scene in the hands of Grandpa Tai and Grandpa Cheng. By the way, you should hurry up and do this matter, and issue a holy decree tomorrow, and the whole Ming Dynasty will praise Wei Aiqing's merit. ”

"Your Majesty, the old slave knows that Your Majesty will say that Lord Wei will do it, doesn't Your Majesty think that Lord Wei has been promoted too quickly and has too much power? At the end of the year, he was already a lord, sitting on the military power of Liaodong, Hejian Mansion, Cangzhou Mansion, Shandong and Denglai military power, the entire Denglai Navy Battalion, plus Lord Wei's father-in-law is the British Duke, and the British Duke has been in charge of the Beijing camp for generations, and the two combined, their family has managed almost one-third of the soldiers and horses of the Ming Dynasty, and the military power is the most elite soldiers and horses. Coupled with the fact that Lord Wei is so talented, don't you need to be careful? The problem of silver, the old slave believes that Lord Wei is easy to solve, and it may be solved with a raise of hand. But what about after that? The military power of the Ming Dynasty was controlled by Lord Wei by a small half, and the taxes were controlled by Lord Wei. Wei Zhongxian deliberately said it very seriously!

Zhu Youxiao and Kebaba were shocked at the same time, including Wang Tiqian, Li Yongzhen and other great eunuchs, and Li Yuanzhong, this heaven and earth will enter the eunuchs around Zhu Youxiao, the emperor of the Apocalypse.

Everyone was surprised, and they probably guessed that Wei Zhongxian would say this, because everyone is a human spirit, and those who can get mixed in the palace are not human spirits, and they all have to become ghosts.

But no one thought that Wei Zhongxian would say it so seriously, this is obviously the rhythm of tearing his face with Wei Bao and fighting head-on, right?

In fact, Wei Zhongxian was also a little strange, why would he say so much?

As Wei Zhongxian spoke, he couldn't help but take his words seriously, subconsciously, he had already realized Wei Bao's threat, and Wei Zhongxian was still loyal to the emperor.

Otherwise, no matter how Wei Bao became stronger, it would be better to say that it would threaten his position, but it would be better to directly threaten the emperor's position.

Zhu Youxiao fell silent when he heard this, and Wei Zhongxian's words just right spoke to the heart of Zhu Youxiao, the Emperor of the Apocalypse.

No matter how much you don't ask about the world, there are still major rights and wrongs, and this point really needs to be guarded against.