"Liyang Marquis Suchen played Lai'an and other places, through the household department senator, Lai'an and other places have been divided into the military and civilian self-planting, collected for the national reserve, how can it be tolerated for private ze, the household department is not appropriate, the emperor issued an edict to check the vacant land in the south of the Ming Americas, and now the cabinet has approved, the emperor has approved, and the land of Temuco in Chile in the south of the Americas is specially given 260 hectares of land!"

The Marquis of Liyang, Suchen, was very shocked after receiving the will, thinking about when the Ming Dynasty had the land of America, and where was Chile, Temuco, and Xinlai'an, but the emperor's edict, he also had to accept it, and he had to ask the herald for a while: "Dare to ask, where is the new Lai'an given by Your Majesty, is it in Fengrun or in Baoding and Hejian?" ”

The official hurriedly said: "Your Majesty knows that the Marquis of Liyang does not know this new place, and specially asked our family to bring you the map, you see, the land of the world is my Ming, this continent is the Americas, and this place is ordered by His Majesty to be Chile, this part of Chile is Temuke, Temuke has a coastal land, is this area, according to the Jianchang Hou report, this area has giant trees to be harvested, and there are countless rare beasts, it is a treasure land, Liyang Marquis, you are blessed, ordinary people want to have such a piece of land can not get it. ”

The Marquis of Liyang thought to himself that where is this treasure land, isn't it just an uninhabited woodland, what is the benefit of getting it himself, it is better to give himself a piece of forest land in the pass, this woodland is far away on the other side of the ocean, even if he wants to go to logging and selling, he will have to spend a lot of money.

"If the Marquis of Liyang wants to develop this place, you can borrow money from the bank of the imperial court, how to say, this place is now yours, if you don't go, no one will care, at the moment the Francois are developing in this area, if they occupy your land, it will be troublesome!"

After the official said, the Marquis of Liyang had to smile awkwardly: "Yes, Su understands it!" ”

After the official left, the Marquis of Liyang, Suchen, showed a look of frustration, but as a noble of the Ming Dynasty, the emperor was unwilling to give him the people's land, and he couldn't do anything with the emperor.

Zhu Houzhao knew that the previous emperor regarded the world as his private property, and these noble vassal kings were all his relatives, as the emperor, it seemed to be in line with human feelings to give some of his own land to his relatives, and the noble vassal kings would also unceremoniously ask the emperor for a certain piece of land.

Even, the emperor will take the initiative to give a large amount of land to these noble vassal kings, for example, in history, Wanli gave 20,000 hectares of land to King Fu, salt led to 10,000 yuan, the treasury was empty, and the fiefdom was not enough to make up in Huguang, Shandong and other places.

This undoubtedly exacerbated the phenomenon of land annexation in the empire, encouraged the extravagance of the vassal lords and nobles, and left the poor without land.

Today, Zhu Houzhao does not dare to regard the world as his private property, although in terms of the system and the consciousness of the people in the world, the world is still his private property.

But Zhu Houzhao knows that everyone has the right to have their private property respected, and the need to have their own private property, and he, the emperor, can exploit the ruled, but he can't take it away, and deprivation will make everyone in the world rebel against him.

Next, Zhu Houzhao did this, as long as it was the imperial relatives who were asking for fiefdoms, Zhu Houzhao directly circled some places in South America, Africa, and Australia and gave them them, because there were no Ming people in these places, and giving them to the emperor's relatives would not infringe on the interests of the people.

Of course, Zhu Houzhao knew that he was doing this, and these imperial relatives would naturally have some complaints, but if there were complaints, there would be complaints, Zhu Houzhao didn't believe that these imperial relatives could do anything, the nobles of this era were not the families before the Song Dynasty, there were no tribes and no fiefs, not to mention themselves as emperors, sometimes these imperial relatives couldn't even fight against a civil official.

And it turned out that even vassal kings like King Ning could not succeed in rebellion.

Now that the empire has come to the present, Zhu Houzhao does not seem to have a clear direction for improving the empire, and seems to be doing the same thing every day, officials at all levels routinely handle every matter, and he, the emperor, also approves and agrees procedurally.

But the subtle changes are still obvious, and now the empire is sending troops to the north on a large scale, resulting in a sharp increase in military spending, and a large amount of the empire's wealth is used for military spending.

At the same time, trade in the border towns also suffered greatly, and the tax revenue and commercial income of the border trade also fell sharply, which the officials of the northern department could not bear.

Kang Hai, the first assistant of the cabinet, also discovered this phenomenon: "Your Majesty, this year's border trade revenue has decreased greatly, from Datong to Liaodong line, the Jin merchants who are mainly engaged in border trade have suffered the heaviest losses, and it has also caused a large decrease in sales of silk, cotton, silk and silk in the south, and military spending has increased a lot. ”

"This is not the fault of these Jin merchants and the Tartars, if these Jin merchants do not smuggle the Tartars, contact the Tartars to plunder the border passes, intent on destroying the normal trade of the border passes, do not pay tariffs, and rely on smuggling to obtain huge profits, now the Tartars have gathered a large army, swept the Tartars, so that there is no trade market in the north, they finally know that it hurts, right?"

Zhu Houzhao also knew that hundreds of thousands of troops had been stationed in the north for a long time, and even continued to increase the number of troops, which almost made it difficult for a large area outside the Saiwai area from the south of Lake Baikal to the north of today's Zhangjiakou, and some of them were wiped out or driven away, and some were forcibly emigrated overseas by the Ming Dynasty, and now there is no trade market in this area.

Shanxi is the closest to this area, and the main business activities of the natural Jin merchants are also in this area, so the commercial market in this area disappears, and the loss of the Jin merchants is naturally the greatest.

But as Zhu Houzhao said, this is also the Jin merchants themselves to blame, they are unwilling to trade through the formal channels of the imperial court, intending to avoid taxes by smuggling, and to make the imperial court lose the ability to control border trade, they can only collude with the Tartars to plunder the border passes.

However, what the Jin merchants miscalculated was that with the progress of the Ming Dynasty's industrialization, the Ming Dynasty's military war model had changed, and the Tartar cavalry could no longer pose any threat to the Ming Dynasty, which had advanced muskets and artillery.

Moreover, with the great increase in the income of the empire after the opening of the sea in the Ming Dynasty, it was not difficult to exterminate the northern Tartars on a large scale.

It is precisely because of this that now, the interests of the Jin merchants have been greatly damaged, and they have to start begging for mercy from the imperial court, hoping that the imperial court will stop sweeping outside the Saiwai and restore peace in this area.

"Your Majesty, the Jin merchants who are evil have been severely punished, but the imperial court can't ignore the lives and deaths of the entire northern merchants, and the northern merchants must have understood that they colluded with the Tartars to mess up the world, and now this problem still has to be solved, not to mention, my Ming Dynasty's military spending will continue to grow at this rate, I am afraid it will not be a long-term solution", Kang Hai said at this time.

And Zhang Xuan couldn't help but stand up: "Your Majesty, as Shoufu said, although the treasury reserves are becoming more and more abundant, but only for military spending, it is also quite suspected of being reckless, which is not conducive to the community, and as Your Majesty said, the wealth of the treasury is taken from the people, and it should be applied to the people, such as building bridges and embankments to promote religion, etc., are all things that benefit the country and the people, but now the treasury is only used for the people, and I am afraid that the people will not need it. ”

Zhu Houzhao nodded, he admitted that Zhang Xuan and Kang Hai were right, he couldn't blindly go north because of some Jin merchants who ignored the interests of the entire people in the world, maybe this was also the helplessness of the Central Plains Dynasty.

The promising kings of the past dynasties naturally did not want the empire to be vast, but running the empire is the same as doing business, not saying that the more land, the better, some worthless land remains in the hands, in addition to spending money and grain to defend the empire, it is better to abandon it to save financial resources and increase people's livelihood.

"According to your meaning, the Ming Dynasty should now abandon all the land that has been outside the Seychelles, and all the land from Helin to Daning (equivalent to today's Mongolia and Inner Mongolia) should not be abandoned, and the army should be withdrawn?"

When Zhu Houzhao asked this, the cabinet officials remained silent, after all, they did not dare to say that all these lands were abandoned.

However, Yang Yiqing came over pushing a wooden wheelchair at this time: "Your Majesty, the minister thinks it is impossible, this vast land is occupied by the entire Guards with countless efforts, and the money and food alone are innumerable, and it is a pity to discard it rashly now!"

And what the minister also wants to ask is that these hundreds of thousands of guards are now stationed in the area outside the Saiwai and can still play the role of defending the palace, but if they are withdrawn to the Guannai, how will the imperial court feed them? ”

"Withdrawal is naturally not able to withdraw, the minister is puzzled, since the Tartars can survive in these places, why can't I Han people, is it possible that my Han people can't shepherd sheep, since it is land, there is always a profit, the minister thinks, the court should still figure out how to use these lands as a good, rather than abandoning it, and if it is abandoned, the Tartars who fled north are bound to come back, and the Tartars in the west will also go east, and there will still be border troubles at that time! What you have done today will be undone! ”

Xia Yan also took over at this time and said.

"The land outside the plug cannot be abandoned! I first explained this point, in the peaceful world, the population will only increase unabated, if the land is abandoned because it is useless now, it will only lead to the intensification of the dispute between people and land within the empire, although the north is bitter cold, but it is not completely unsuitable for human life, Xia Qing is right, the interest of land is not only whether it can be cultivated, different lands have different income, the imperial court should find a way to use these lands, not abandon them! ”

After Zhu Houzhao said, Kang Hai, Zhang Xuan and others hurriedly complimented the order.

Zhu Houzhao nodded, and began to think carefully with these courtiers about how to use the newly occupied land in the north.

There is no doubt that most of these lands outside the Saibei can be planted with winter wheat except for the Great Wall, most of which are meaningless to do agriculture, not to mention, Zhu Houzhao also knows that in fifty years, the climate of the Xiaoice River will become more and more obvious, and then these places in the north of the Saibei will be even colder, and in the long run, they are not suitable for the development of agriculture, even in later generations, these areas of Liaodong and Nuergandusi are still the main rice producing areas.

Of course, the traditional industries of these lands such as animal husbandry can still be developed, and even the development of the food industry can be used to promote animal husbandry, after all, if the Ming people are allowed to drink milk every day in the future, the demand for dairy cows must be great, and the animal husbandry of these grasslands outside the Saiwai undoubtedly has a lot of room for development.

Of course, the problem is that no one in the Ming Dynasty has drunk milk yet, and dairy products have only become popular among the aristocracy.

Zhu Houzhao felt that the most immediate reflection of the value of land outside the Saiwai was the rich mineral resources contained in the Saiwai, and Zhu Houzhao vaguely remembered that the area from Helin to Daning was an area rich in mineral resources in later generations.

In later generations, Inner Mongolia was the hometown of the world's "open-pit coal mine", and Mongolia was also rich in coal, silver and copper.

Daming has now implemented the mechanization of steam in the textile industry, and the demand for coal is accelerating, and Zhu Houzhao can predict that since the Ming Dynasty has opened the steam mechanization of the textile industry, then mining, transportation, military, navigation, water conservancy and other aspects will definitely start steam industrialization rapidly, and the demand for coal will definitely be greater.

In the future, these places outside the Saiwai that the Ming Dynasty now occupies can undoubtedly provide the Ming Dynasty with rich mineral resources.

Therefore, Zhu Houzhao convened another court meeting.

"It doesn't make much sense for these places outside the Saiwai to be distributed to farmers for farming, I thought about it, they can be distributed to herdsmen and animal husbandry, and they can also be contracted to businessmen to open mines, the latter should be the most effective way at the moment, I remember that the Ministry of Industry has just written a notebook, saying that the coal output of Zhengde's 19 years of government coal mines has quadrupled compared with Zhengde's 18 years! This shows that after the appearance of the steam engine in the Ming Dynasty, the demand for coal increased sharply. ”

Zhu Houzhao said.

Zhang Xuan nodded after hearing this, he was in charge of the Ministry of Industry, so he naturally knew how much coal was in demand in Daming now, but he had to remind: "Your Majesty, the minister has been in the border town for a long time, and he found that the merchants are not willing to open mines in places such as Hetao and Saibei, which are newly occupied by the Ming Dynasty. ”

"This is why, most of the coal mines in Hetao and Saibei are open-pit mines, which are difficult to mine and have cheaper labor, and the mining in the Guannai is often ruined, and I have not yet explicitly approved the private mining in the Guannai, so it can be said that the private miners are still illegally mining," Zhu Houzhao said.

"Because the mines in the customs do not charge mining taxes, because the imperial court is forbidden to open mines, there is no tax supervision and taxation, but Hetao and Saibei, the imperial court is a merchant Tuntian mining, but will collect mining tax and field tax, so the merchants are still more willing to open mines in the Guannei, as for the labor force, the people of the Ming Dynasty have always had low requirements for wages, and even only require three meals a day to meet, and the customs are mostly Han people, the Han people can be bullied, and the customs are mostly Mongolian people, Mongolian people can not be bullied, so the merchants who open the mine would rather exploit the Han people of the same race, and dare not exploit the Mongolian peopleTherefore, in terms of employment costs, it is also more cost-effective. ”

Zhang Xuan replied.

Zhu Houzhao couldn't help but be stunned for a while after hearing this: "I didn't expect that Han people are easy to be bullied, and they are even more likely to be bullied by their compatriots, which has been the case since ancient times;

But right now, as the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, and you, as important ministers of the imperial court, what you think about must be conducive to the social affairs of the Ming Dynasty and the national interests of the empire.

According to the investigation of the East Factory, it is estimated that more than 10,000 people died in the mining disaster in Zhengde in 17 years, and more than 50,000 acres of cultivated land were destroyed. ”

When the cabinet ministers heard Zhu Houzhao say this, they couldn't help but say yes.

At this time, Zhu Houzhao couldn't help but look at Kang Hai and the others: "You are all ministers in charge of internal affairs, speaking of which, I would like to ask, do you know how many mines are being opened in the Guannai under the condition that the imperial court prohibits mining, what is the actual annual coal production of the Ming Dynasty, how many people's arable land is destroyed because of mining every year, how many people die in mining disasters, and how much the assets of the imperial treasury are lost, do you know in your heart?" ”

"This, most of the miners are noble gentry, and the ban on mining is as difficult as the ban on smuggled salt, and the ministers are powerless!" Kang Hai couldn't help but reply truthfully.

"It's hard to forbid it, but it can't be a reason to ignore it, so far, I don't remember a courtier who asked me to open a mine and ban mining taxes, and no courtier asked me to strictly ban private mining! None of the ministers noticed these problems, but Dongchang was doing it, what are you civil officials doing, this is a manifestation of inaction! You used to say that you were worried about the country and the people, but where are you worried about the country and the people? Zhu Houzhao asked with some seriousness.

The cabinet ministers couldn't help but blush: "The ministers are ashamed!" Please punish Your Majesty! ”