Although Yang Sichang's gaze swept over the documents in front of him, his mind was not completely focused on what Chongzhen said. It is true that breaking into the interior of the Oirat tribe in this way and digesting the Oirat tribe with political strategies is a frontier expansion policy with a very low cost for the Ming Dynasty.

But Yang Sichang's ambition is not here, he thought about it for a long time, and then said to the emperor, "What Your Majesty said is indeed a good opportunity for my Ming to enter the northern Xinjiang, but the minister thinks that now my Ming worries are inside and not outside."

If we can't sort out the internal differences and stabilize the local situation, even if we can control the Oirat Department and Mobei Mongolia, we will also lose these places.

Locust plague in Nanjing this summer. Drought and locust conditions have occurred in Beijing, Shandong, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Henan, and Hainan. Jiangxi, Guangdong, Guangxi, and Guizhou have big waters. Since the beginning of winter, Hunan has been cold and frozen, and there are people who have frozen to death in many places. If it weren't for the fact that Your Majesty has been vigorously building water conservancy projects in the north and south since he ascended the throne, the disaster of floods and droughts this year would have been several times more serious.

The minister thought that in such a year, the imperial court should use its energy and resources for the country, instead of continuing to expand outward, the land of northern Xinjiang, Oirat and Mobei, it is not too late to make plans after the Ming Dynasty has recuperated, why should Your Majesty use his strength outside at this time, and make the people in the country uneasy? ”

For Yang Sichang's persistence, Zhu Youzhen also has a headache. Although the commodity economy of the Ming Dynasty has reached an unprecedented stage, the upper-class elites of this era have still not been able to sum up a new set of economic concepts.

Even though Chongzhen pieced together the Wealth of Nations Theory through social surveys and introduced the concept of capital into the Ming Dynasty, for most readers, they still stubbornly regarded the small-scale peasant economy as the cornerstone of social stability, and naturally hated the destruction of the small-scale peasant economy by mercantilism.

This disgust is not due to their own rational thinking, but the three views they have cultivated since childhood have been challenged by new things, making it difficult for them to understand that their thoughts and concepts have been eliminated by the times. net

There may be a small number of people who dare to abandon the old concepts and old knowledge of the past, devote themselves to the trend of the new era, and reshape their three views. But for most people, they have neither the courage nor the ability.

It is like someone who has believed in socialism since childhood, obeyed the distribution of the state, and dedicated his youth and most of his life to the enterprise. But suddenly, two generations of workers who worked hard to build a factory from scratch suddenly became an insolvent burden to the state, and the value created by these workers in the past was zeroed out overnight, while they were attacked by public opinion as a group of rice worms fed by the state.

When people reach middle age, they are laid off, and the skills honed in the past on the job become worthless. At this time, they are required to start anew, just like young people, and learn and live from scratch according to the concept of the new era, and how many people can climb out of such a quagmire.

This is the biggest obstacle to the seldom success of the reforms of the last dynasties. The old supporters feel frustrated that the benefits of the reform have been damaged, while the beneficiaries of the reform still dislike the reform policy for being too relaxed, and always want to further promote the progress of the reform and bury everything of the old era.

The process of promoting reform is to walk a tightrope between the reformers and the old-fashioned, and every step needs to find a new balance, otherwise everyone may fall into the abyss and defend their values with blood and heads.

Zhu Youzhen has always guarded the bottom line of political struggle and tried his best to maintain bloodless political struggle, not because he has any political habits, but because he simply cannot control the situation in the court after the bloody struggle.

He did not think that with the ethics of these Ming gentry, he could only target the diehards who hindered reform, instead of expanding the attack to his own personal enemies. In the history of the late Ming Dynasty that he knew, in order to monopolize the power of the Southern Ming Dynasty, the southern scholars did not hesitate to beat the northern gentry into spies who defected to the enemy.

In order to take revenge on the southern gentry, the northern gentry simply joined the Qing army, maintained the local area for the Qing army, and requisitioned grain for service. Therefore, once the political struggle begins to bleed, he will either choose a side or be hostile to both sides of the political struggle, and no one will want him to take the side of the opponent.

Zhu Youzhen did not want to be Charles I, let alone Louis XVI, the founding father of the United States, so he could only persuade, persuade, and persuade the reformist and old-fashioned ministers.

Although his persuasion may not be able to change the thinking of the diehards, for most courtiers, what they want to see is the attitude displayed by Zhu Youzhen to determine their actions.

Therefore, Zhu Youzhen sighed in his heart, and said to Yang Sichang: "Yang Qing must know that the reason why the imperial court was able to survive last year and this year is mainly because of the large amount of materials imported from overseas.

If it weren't for the grain production bases and trading ports opened up by the imperial court overseas, where do you think the imperial court would have been able to get materials to help the people in those disaster areas in the past two years? Can domestic food production alone feed the people affected by the disaster? ”

Yang Sichang hurriedly said: "The minister is not saying that the imperial court is operating in the southern overseas countries, the imperial court invests one yuan in these areas, and it can often recover several times the profits, how can the minister oppose the imperial court's investment in these places."

What the minister objected to was the investment in the Mongol tribes of Mobei and the Oirats of northern Xinjiang, which had been bitter cold since ancient times, and had little output except for cattle and sheep. The money invested by the imperial court in these places yielded little return, and only allowed some merchants to profit from it.

Under the condition that the northern provinces of our country have been affected by disasters for many years, is it necessary for the imperial court to continue to invest in these two regions? The minister believes that even if the past market rewards are restored, it will be much less economical than the current investment in these two places.

The cost of building a railway from Fengzhen to Ulaanbaatar and towns such as Ulaanbaatar and Urumqi alone was enough to quiet these tribes for decades. Although the country's finances have improved, such a burden still requires borrowing a large amount of national debt from the people, and the minister is worried about whether the imperial court will be able to repay the principal and interest normally in the future. If something goes wrong, the country will be in chaos in an instant. ”

Even a minister like Yang Sichang, who is extremely concerned about domestic affairs, has already regarded the overseas territories in the south as his own property, which is undoubtedly excellent news for Zhu Youzhen, at least he knows that even the most stubborn officials can still change in the face of interests.

In the eleven years after ascending the throne, for Chongzhen, who had basically controlled the court situation, a political situation that was fought but not broken was obviously the most conducive to consolidating his rule. In such a situation, it is clear that words are more powerful than the sword.

Zhu Youzhen's heart relaxed a little, and asked Yang Sichang a question, "Yang Qing thinks that when the imperial court encounters a crisis, are the people who have always enjoyed the benefits of the imperial court loyal to the imperial court, or those who are owed by the imperial court are more loyal to the imperial court?" ”

"It's... The minister thought that those who were deeply favored by the state should be more loyal to the court. Yang Sichang hesitated and replied to the emperor.

Zhu Youzhen shook his head with a smile and said, "In times of crisis, those who are willing to spend time with the imperial court must be those who are owed by the imperial court. It's like among private merchants, merchants are more willing to lend money to merchants who owe money to themselves, than to those who have lent money to themselves.

For the former, the merchant thought that he could not let the money he had lent out go down the drain. For the latter, the businessman is worried about whether the other party can turn over and repay the money.

The more confidence the people had in the court, the more they dared to exchange their savings for state bonds, and the more state bonds they had in their hands, the more they did not want the country to fall.

And the more the people did not have confidence in the imperial court, the more they would not buy state bonds, but replaced them with gold and silver reserves to prevent their own belongings from being damaged when the dynasty changed.

Therefore, it is not a problem for the imperial court to borrow money from the people, but it is a big problem if it can't borrow money. Now what we lose is only interest, otherwise what we lose is the people's heart.

As for the Mongolian tribes in Mobei, Northern Xinjiang and other places, if we don't care about them, will they obediently stay on the grassland and do nothing?

Yang Qing should know very well that the reason why Jin dared to take a detour through the Chengde area to invade the border wall of Jizhou after Chongzhen was not because we didn't care enough about the 36 closed doors, which led to the 36 departments that had always been the barrier of our Ming Dynasty became the guide of the Houjin army.

The Khalkha Mongols in Mobei and the Oirat Mongols in the north are now in a period of extreme decline. If we don't care about them now, once they are co-opted by Houjin and Russia, the story of Chongzhen's second year may not be repeated.

Yes, the Ming Dynasty is difficult now, but the nomads around us are obviously more difficult than us. Now it is better for us to care for them, to understand them, to divide them, until we turn them into a part of the Ming Dynasty, than to resist their invasion when they are free-flowing into an independent regime.

Can we turn a blind eye to the lessons given to us by the Jianzhou Jurchens? A simple market reward did not allow the Ming to penetrate deep into the interior of the Mongolian tribes, but instead became an opportunity for these Mongolian tribes to strengthen themselves.

In the long run, the cost of the city reward is very high and the gain is very small, and it is obviously necessary for us to change this policy instead of raising a second Jurchen to establish a state.

The northern Xinjiang region occupied by the Oirat is much more supportive than the Mobei steppe of the Khalkha Mongols, and there are Tianshan Mountains between the northern Xinjiang and the hinterland, and once the Oirat tribes become a unified khanate, it will inevitably threaten the rule of the Ming Dynasty in Hami and Turpan.

Without Hami and Turpan, we would not be able to keep the southern Xinjiang region. With the loss of southern Xinjiang, the Silk Road was cut off again. Without the Silk Road, the Ganxi region would not have been able to rely on trade to save itself. If all the materials in the northwest region need to be imported from the coastal areas, will the finances of the imperial court still be able to sustain themselves? ”

Yang Sichang was silent, and after sitting opposite the emperor for a while, he finally picked up the document given by Chongzhen and got up and left.