Although the Science Progressive Party rejected Choi Chengxiu's application to join several times, the relationship between the two sides was relatively harmonious, much more relaxed than the tension between Choi Chengxiu and the New Donglin Party.

This situation is not only due to the fact that the members of the Progressive Party of Science are mainly technical officials and are not overly enthusiastic about political struggle. Although Cui Chengxiu failed to become a member of the Scientific Progressive Party, he was not alone, since Cui Chengxiu contacted the Jizhou Jinshen to invest in the Tangshan Iron and Steel Production Base, the former eunuch leader has faintly become the leader of the northern gentry's investment in emerging industry and commerce.

As early as the Han Dynasty, there was an economic policy discussion meeting from the perspective of the state, although the content of the discussion of the salt and iron theory was not limited to the production and trade of salt and iron, but even the ancients knew that salt and iron were the bulk of the country's financial and tax sources, let alone the Ming people.

It's just that compared with daily consumables such as salt, in addition to being used to make living and production tools, steel also has one of the most important uses in this era, that is, to make weapons and armor. Therefore, the control of the iron smelting industry by the imperial courts in successive dynasties was quite strict.

In the early years of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the iron smelting industry was mainly controlled by the official iron field under the name of the imperial court, and the number of private iron produced by the private sector was almost less than 30% of the official iron field, and the quality was extremely poor. However, in the Jiawan era, this situation began to reverse, and the quantity produced by the official iron yard was not only inferior to that of the private iron yard, but even the quality was greatly regressed.

The reason for this situation is that the corruption of officials has led to the increase in the cost of the official iron field and the decline in quality; The second is that most of the private iron yards are in the hands of the gentry, these people hold the control power of the local government, not only avoid the supervision of the imperial court and privately develop the iron mountain, but also wantonly evade taxes, which greatly reduces the cost of the civil railway.

Of course, if you look at this situation from a macro perspective, then there is another conclusion. That is, the economy of the Ming Dynasty has almost reached the peak of the agricultural era, so the entire social economy has fallen into a state of stagnation, and the annual steel consumption is naturally close to fixed. Therefore, the more prosperous the private iron farm, the more the government iron farm will decline, which is the so-called zero-sum game under the fixed market capacity.

But in Chongzhen's view, the stagnation of social development in the agricultural era is just an illusion, which does not mean that the market no longer needs more commodities, but that the consumption power of the entire agricultural society restricts the continued expansion of the commodity economy. After all, the production surplus in the agricultural era was not much, and most of these surpluses were still controlled by the gentry and landlords, and their consumption power was almost equal to the consumption power of the whole society, but for the majority of the middle and lower class people, their consumption needs were not satisfied, but they were just unable to consume.

Just like before the first year of Chongzhen, the total output of raw and wrought iron in the Ming Dynasty was evenly distributed to each national, about one catty, which was estimated to be just enough to hit a kitchen knife or something, and the steel output was almost negligible. However, such a low steel production capacity, the domestic market of the Ming Dynasty has begun to be unable to digest, Shanxi and Shaanxi merchants in the north smuggled iron to the grassland and Houjin, while southern coastal merchants smuggled iron to the Nanyang region.

Is there really no need for steel in Daming? Naturally, this is not the case, and in some remote mountainous areas, many farmers do not even have an iron farming tool at home. The leap from the agricultural age to the industrial age naturally requires breaking the ceiling of the agricultural social consumer market, so as to promote the continuous transfer of capital to industry and commerce.

Faced with such a situation, Su Changqing, who came from later generations, naturally formulated three countermeasures. The first is to implement land reform and redistribute land under the condition that the total amount of cultivated land remains unchanged, so as to increase the proportion of yeoman farmers and expand the domestic consumer market; The second is to vigorously promote foreign trade and obtain new consumer markets, raw material sources and capital sources for the industry and commerce of the Ming Dynasty; The third is the implementation of state-led infrastructure construction to expand market demand.

These three countermeasures have been proven by history, so they have naturally achieved remarkable results after they have been implemented. Of course, unlike the British, who were the first to complete the industrial revolution in history, due to the backwardness of navigation and the successive occurrence of natural disasters, Chongzhen did not choose textiles as the main commodity to promote the industrialization of the Ming Dynasty, but chose the steel smelting and manufacturing industry.

Relying on the needs of railway construction, machinery manufacturing and shipbuilding, the iron and steel plants of the Ming Dynasty that were established and put into construction from the first year of Chongzhen have become unimaginable behemoths in the past in the thirteenth year of Chongzhen. The iron output of one Tangshan steel production base alone is already more than double the total amount of iron produced in the past year. The amount of steel produced by Chongzhen in the thirteenth year has exceeded 800,000 tons, and it is beginning to approach the milestone value of an iron smelting industry with an annual output of one million tons of pig iron. At this time, the pig iron production of the whole of Europe was only about 100,000 tons.

If it is said that when Choi Chengxiu and other northern gentry first invested in new industries and commerce such as the steel industry, their main purpose was to show their sincerity to the newly enthroned emperor, and they did not think that their investment would be more important than the land in their hands. Today, the northern gentry, who had invested in the new industry and commerce, valued these investments more than they wanted land.

It is only five or six years ago that if these northern gentry encountered a temporary large expenditure in their homes, they would first choose to mortgage or sell their various shares, and only when they had to do so would they start to sell their land. After all, the gentry have always tacitly acquiesced that land is the foundation of a family, and the decline of a family often begins with the sale of land.

However, with the rate of return brought by the new industry and commerce that was much higher than the income from the land, and the stability that was less affected by natural disasters, the gentry who invested in the new industry and commerce finally changed their minds and began to invest in the new industry and commerce on the land.

And the successive droughts in the north last year and this year have accelerated the reversal of their values among the northern gentry. On the basis of the severe drought in the north this year, the number of land sold in the market is much higher than in previous years, but the share transfer agreements of various industries with good prospects are much lower than in previous years.

With the change of this traditional value of farming and heirloom, these gentry began to turn their gaze from the narrow countryside to the cities and overseas, and consciously or unconsciously strengthened their willingness to interfere with the outside world. The rural concept of being too much of a chicken-dog voice, and not getting along with each other, began to be seen as pedantic and narrow-minded.

For the Ministry of Industry, which led the technological innovation and emerging industrial development of the Ming Dynasty, the northern gentry represented by Cui Chengxiu naturally had a natural sense of closeness. The Scientific Progressive Party, which leads the Ministry of Industry, naturally won the favor of Cui Chengxiu. Even if the other party is reluctant to accept him, the two sides basically maintain a good interaction in the daily exchanges, after all, the relationship between the capitalists and the industrial revolution is originally an interdependent relationship.

On the other side, Wu Chunfu was also extremely surprised by Cui Chengxiu's bold arrival. Unlike Cui Chengxiu, who was driven out of the capital in the first year of Chongzhen, although he was the backbone of the eunuch party, Wu Chunfu still kept his position under the protection of the emperor.

Although in the past, Wu Chunfu was obedient to Cui Chengxiu, but after Cui Chengxiu came back again, the two almost no longer had any intersection. On the one hand, both of them are smart people, and they know that although Chongzhen said in the court that there are no eunuchs and Donglin people, this is just a dispute between some officials and palace personnel, so as to maintain their brother's face.

But this does not mean that the emperor has no opinion on the so-called eunuchs and Donglin people in his heart, otherwise he would not have driven Wei Zhongxian and Cui Chengxiu out of the capital as soon as he ascended the throne, and refused to publicly overturn the case for the Donglin gentlemen. Therefore, even if Cui Chengxiu returned to the court and sent his niece into the palace, he had no intention of contacting the backbone of the eunuch party in the past, so as to violate the emperor's taboo and make himself unhappy.

On the other hand, after surviving the years after Chongzhen ascended the throne, Wu Chunfu finally understood why the emperor kept himself and kept him in the Ministry of Industry.

In fact, this is similar to the role of his in-law Yu Zhigao, when Yu Zhigao lost several battles with Zheng Zhilong's pirate group in Fujian, but Chongzhen not only did not punish him, but left Yu Zhigao in the capital to take charge of the Beijing camp, thus promoting the comprehensive rectification and reform of the Beijing camp, so that Chongzhen, who had just ascended the throne, mastered the military strength inside and outside the capital in the fastest time and at the lowest cost, thus starting a series of reform policies.

It was precisely because Wu Chunfu sat in the position of the secretary of the Ministry of Industry that the emperor was able to make a drastic adjustment of the Ministry of Industry, so that the Ministry of Industry cooperated with the Inner Court Wensi Institute to create a new department of the Ordnance Supervisor, thus providing material and technical support for the industrial development of Gyeonggi.

In the final analysis, both of them are guilty of crimes, and there is no other way out except to rely on the emperor. And it is precisely because of the mistakes they bear that they have to actively behave in front of the emperor in order to save themselves, and they dare not exchange interests with others, which ruins the emperor's plan.

It is precisely because of this truth that Wu Chunfu has been guarding the Ministry of Works very calmly all these years, and does not try to reach out to other places in order to spend this little time before retiring peacefully. Therefore, Cui Chengxiu's arrival today made him extremely puzzled, since the other party did not contact him after he recovered, he naturally saw this.

However, knowing the emperor's taboo, he still has to come to the door, which is obviously not a good thing. Wu Chunfu refused at first, but Choi Chengxiu did not leave, but passed a few words through his son, which made him change his mind. The two talked alone in the study for more than an hour, Cui Chengxiu said goodbye and left with a satisfied expression, and Wu Chunfu, who sent Cui Chengxiu away, had a cloudy face, and stood in the courtyard for a long time without turning back to the room.

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