I heard Zuo Maodi solemnly say to Emperor Chongzhen: "Your Majesty, now the transportation of the Ming Dynasty, including freight, military transportation and ship repair fees, and other expenses are borne by grain households, and they are all levied according to the regular grain consumption. In addition, the canal is long-term, involving many provinces and counties, among which there are many corrupt officials and corrupt officials, who occupy the canal, do the act of plucking the feathers of the geese, and impose all kinds of miscellaneous taxes, and the burden on grain households is extremely heavy. ”

When he said this, he suddenly raised his voice, as if to complain: "The peasants are exempted from paying taxes and silver, but they are abandoned in the time of famine, and they are very hard. If it is drifted away by the wind and waves, the officials are extorted, and they are bound to pay debts, and even the family is ruined. Even if the transportation army undertakes the transportation of grain to the north, the vast majority of the transportation soldiers are as tired as the farmers, and the world is hard, which is by no means alarmist. If Your Majesty doesn't believe it, you can send someone to verify the actual number of troops, and Weichen dares to guarantee that it is only a lot more than the proportion of military households fleeing. ”

Emperor Chongzhen's face was serious when he heard this, based on his impression of the officials at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the matter of goose plucking should not be too normal.

"And today's canal, there have been many sections of silt blockage, or when the water is dry, can not sail, then recruit the local people to pull the fiber, or the carriage and horse transport, during this period, the cost of money, food and labor, all kinds of drawbacks, can be said to be too many." Zuo Maodi said this, very seriously: "If you change to sea, not only can you solve the suffering of the people along the way, and there is no disadvantage of transport, although there is a risk of high winds and waves, but as long as there are experienced fishermen, then the calm season, along the coast, should be less drifted." ”

"Oh, so you can say that Cao Yun is wasted?" When Emperor Chongzhen heard this, he remained silent, and just asked very calmly.

Hearing this, Zuo Maodi immediately replied, obviously, he should have thought about this a long time ago, so that he could react so quickly: "Definitely! Although there are many defects in Caoyun, as Shoufu said, the number of soldiers and civilians related to Caoyu is so large that they have to be treated cautiously. Weichen thought that the transportation could be halved and the sea transportation could be changed to sea. After the sea freight is familiar, then reduce all the transportation, but also! ”

Hearing this, Emperor Chongzhen couldn't help nodding slightly in his heart, this is a method of slowly exceeding, and it can be regarded as a steady move.

When he was about to speak, he heard Zuo Maodi say: "However, the canal cannot be abolished, except for the transportation, the freight from the south to the north can still be used." Inspired by His Majesty's previous policy, it is better to dredge the canal with more manpower after the centralized reform of shipping, which will be used for private freight and collect customs duties, so as to make up for the lack of the national treasury......"

Speaking of this, he looked at the emperor's face, and added: "Or the tariff collected at the beginning is used for the dredging of the current canal, so that the canal can be wasted, and the sea grain can be promoted, and the treasury does not need to spend a penny of silver, the luck of the court, and the blessing of the people!" ”

Emperor Chongzhen understood what Zuo Maodi meant, and in summary, it actually meant that shipping could save a lot of costs, which could just be used to dredge the canal and solve the livelihood problems of the people along the canal, and after dredging the canal, it could collect tariffs, thereby increasing the revenue of the treasury. In the future, when the canal dredging is completed, the imperial court will be able to enjoy the benefits saved by shipping.

And what he said should be inspired by his previous policy, which should refer to the current matter of letting Zhang Pu collect the arrears and other income in Jiangnan for local disaster relief. As long as this is done, there will be much less resistance to the policies implemented by the imperial court.

Emperor Chongzhen thought so, so he asked the other courtiers: "What do you think of Zuo Qing's thoughts?" ”

This statement of Zuo Maodi is in line with the framework of the emperor's prior designation. And the ministers could sense from the emperor's words and demeanor that the emperor was satisfied with Zuo Maodi's proposal. It's just one way, this approach can allow the imperial court to solve the current shortcomings of Caoyun without spending money and food, and they feel that the emperor should be in favor. And if you want to veto Zuo Maodi's approach, the emperor has already said it, and you must propose a corresponding solution.

Therefore, after Emperor Chongzhen's questioning, the ministers were all silent, and no one objected.

On the contrary, Xue Guoguan, the first assistant, came out and played to Emperor Chongzhen: "Your Majesty, Weichen seconded the proposal, and it is a prudent move to divide it into half lines." However, the change from water transportation to sea transportation, unlike all the before, how to effectively coordinate the control and distribution of money? ”

The money and grain that Zhang Pu demanded will be deposited into the Nanzhili branch of the Daming Royal Bank. Then, the disaster prevention and relief of the prefectures under the jurisdiction of Nanzhili was applied for by the local chief official, and the less than 50,000 taels was jointly approved by Yang Tinglin, the imperial historian of Nanjing, Lu Jiude, the eunuch of Nanjing, and Sun Chuanting, the secretary of the ministry, and the corresponding silver bills could be withdrawn from the Nanzhili branch of the Ming Royal Bank. If it is more than 50,000 taels, it will be reported to the Jingshi side as soon as possible, and Emperor Chongzhen will approve it.

In this, there is nothing to do with the Nanjing Hubu Shangshu. Some officials were not satisfied and wrote to the court. Emperor Chongzhen's reply was that the money and grain were earmarked for disaster prevention and relief, and there was nothing unreasonable about the application of the local chief official to be reviewed by the official department of Shangshu, who is currently evaluating the local officials.

From this, in fact, all Jiangnan officials can see that in the Jiangnan officialdom, the emperor trusts these feudal officials. The other courtiers, unless they do something special to win the emperor's trust, will be pressed by these three feudal officials, plus one Zhang Pu.

More than a year has passed, and the branches in the provincial capitals of all provinces have been carried out, except for a few areas such as the northwest and southwest. But this time the change from water to sea is different, it is related to several branches, so how to allocate this money is a problem! Who else will review is also a question.

Emperor Chongzhen listened, frowned slightly, thought for a while, and made a decree, mentioning the left Maodi as the right capital imperial history, and the governor Caoyun and the military governor Fengyang and other places are also in charge of the river, that is, the governor of Caoyun. The approval of less than 50,000 taels of silver was also determined by the governor of Caoyun alone.

Suddenly, everyone saw that Zuo Maodi should have won the Sacred Heart. The power given to him will be great.

Originally, the position of the governor of Caoyun was a very important one among all the local official positions in the Ming Dynasty. It is not only necessary to supervise Caoyun, but also to supervise the four prefectures of Feng, Yang, Lu, and Huai, as well as the three prefectures of Xu, He, and Chu.

In this regard, Zuo Maodi felt the weight of responsibility, so he immediately asked the emperor to send lieutenants to cooperate. In other words, he took the initiative to ask the emperor to send an eye and ears to be by his side.

However, for this request, Emperor Chongzhen said with a smile: "Qing is young and true, and I look at it." has been in charge of Hancheng for six years, and there are a few people who can do what they do. If you have the ability, I will be able to use people with talent and virtue regardless of qualifications. ”

The words were said beautifully, showing a strong sense of trust in Zuo Maodi. However, no one knows that it is a matter of course to reward a seed of eavesdropping.

Zuo Maodi immediately became excited when he heard this, this kind of trust still came from the emperor's trust, so that he immediately gave birth to the feeling that a soldier would die as a confidant.

So, he was no longer hypocritical, and played firmly and forcefully: "The minister's decree is grateful!" ”

There was no generous statement, but the tone was extremely firm, so that Emperor Chongzhen could feel his determination when he heard it.

In this regard, Emperor Chongzhen was very satisfied, nodded with a smile, and then said: "Qing is here, in addition to the most important things of Cao Yun, I also have to supervise the land measurement of the land under my jurisdiction. ”

Hearing this, Zuo Maodi immediately understood that the emperor gave him so much trust to show others, so that he could have less resistance in this matter of fabricating the fish scale book.

Thinking of this, he agreed without hesitation.

Although Emperor Chongzhen wanted to promote Zuo Maodi's practice throughout the country and re-measure the land of the whole country. However, he also knows that this national policy is related to the country's follow-up taxation and other policies, and it is a very basic work. In other words, this re-making of the fish scale book is very important.

And this matter, if there is no competent magistrate to do it, it is easy to encroach on the interests of ordinary people, occupy their land, and leave them with nowhere to reason. At the same time, it may also make the land that has been usurped by those places become their legitimate land. So that the implementation of this national policy has become a harmful policy.

At present, Emperor Chongzhen really can't trust those local officials of the Ming Dynasty, including those feudal officials.

The first is the issue of official character, whether it will collude with local tyrants; the second is the issue of ability, whether it will be fooled by local tyrants;

Therefore, Emperor Chongzhen finally decided that this matter of re-making the fish scale book should start with a small scale. Zuo Maodi's subordinates can do this, and Zhang Pu's side can also do it. For now, it's up to the two of them to do it first.

The content of this court discussion involves the provinces along the largest canal of the Ming Dynasty and is related to the interests of everyone, so the new governor of Caoyun has not yet set off from Beijing, and the news about the court discussion spreads rapidly from north to south.

At this time, Wu Zhong's side, with the secret assistance of Li Ruolian, the commander of Jinyiwei, pretended to be the agent of a wealthy Korean merchant on the surface, and secretly a representative of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and had already begun to contact the big salt merchants.

In fact, there is no need for Jinyiwei to conduct a special investigation, just need to know who among the big salt merchants has the fastest rise and the smallest family power, then he must not be a good bird, he is definitely a ruthless figure, and he can only sit big at once by colluding with the government forces.

You know, even if the salt merchant does this monopoly business, it is not so easy to do. It doesn't matter, even if there is a salt lead, don't even think about changing from the salt field to table salt quickly. And if it's just rules and regulations to buy and sell official salt, how much profit can it have? It is definitely to fill the official salt with private salt, and it can level the forces of all parties.

Wu Zhong's contact with the big salt merchant Le Qingsheng is such a character. First, the two sides negotiated with authentic North Korean specialties as bait. After that, he slowly talked about doing business with the Manchus.

For people in this era, in their eyes, there is really no distinction between countries, who can make money doing business with, and how many people will care who he is? The smuggling of Jin merchants is represented in the north, and on the south side, smuggling by sea is not also prevalent. The legendary Japanese cobs don't know how many heroes from the Jiangnan side are involved behind them.

Moreover, at the beginning, Wu Zhong did not reveal his identity as Huang Taiji's son-in-law, but used the agent of a Korean merchant as the background, saying that it was extremely profitable to do business with Jianyu. It's just a pity that North Korea is too poor and doesn't have the materials, grain, grass and other items needed to build a captive, otherwise, there would be no need to come to Mingguo.

At the beginning, it may have accidentally leaked out, and then as the relationship increased, Wu Zhong accidentally revealed that he wanted to buy materials, grain and grass here in Mingguo, resell them to Liaodong, and make several times his profits. After discovering that Le Qingsheng's eyes were red, he accidentally revealed that his identity was actually the representative of Jianyu. Next, it is logical to talk directly about business.

At the beginning, the profits were so big that when Le Qingsheng's eyes were red, he was also a little worried, worried that Jianyu's side was a fraud, how could there be such a high profit!

In the end, Wu Zhong seemed to be out of the way, and came up with evidence to prove his identity as the slave chieftain Taiji Horse Master. Subsequently, he also let Le Qingsheng choose very singlely.

On the first road, Le Qingsheng can hand him over to the government, so that he will be rewarded for his meritorious service;

In the second way, Le Qingsheng could become the imperial merchant of the Manchu Qing Dynasty in the Ming Dynasty, and collect the materials, grain and grass needed by the Manchu Qing in the Jiangnan region and transport them to Liaodong, so as to make unimaginable profits. And this profit, there will definitely be no fake, if you don't believe it, you can let him get the will of the Emperor Taiji jade seal as a certificate.

There is a saying that when you make several times your profits, you can make people crazy. The price offered by Huang Taiji made it difficult for a folk hero like Le Qingsheng to refuse. He didn't think about handing Wu Zhong over to the government at all, but he had some doubts.

First, such a high profit made him a little suspicious, and the wealth came faster than his private salt business. As long as he successfully goes back and forth to Liaodong, he can make more money.

Second, when he transported grain and grass supplies from the south of the Yangtze River to Liaodong, he was worried that going north would attract attention. After all, at this time, there are people who go to sea privately, but they all go south to do business. If he goes north, he does have such doubts.

Wu Zhong has a good solution to this, the first one. He told Le Qingsheng that he could swear an oath with him, stamp the seal of his horse, and then go to Liaodong to make a two-ship deal to explore the way. Wu Zhong promised that he would definitely make enough profits to come back, and by the way, he could also stamp the jade seal of the Qing Emperor on the oath to assure him.

As for the second worry, Wu Zhong had no choice but to tell him, starve the bold to death, and you can do it yourself.

Just when Le Qingsheng was a little confused, the news that Caoyun was gradually changing to sea transportation came over. That is to say, if the sea ship goes north, it will not be conspicuous at all in the future.

God help me! When Le Qingsheng heard the news, he couldn't help but look up to the sky and shout, and he was very happy.