The issuance of foreign debts has always been the most resistant to the Ming officials, who were deeply influenced by the traditional idea of living within their means. Pen fun and pavilion www.biquge.info

With such a large-scale issuance of foreign debt, it can be said that the Chen Zhiting government really has no choice but to do it.

The Ming government has raised money through various methods, such as increasing various taxes, the export tax rebate of tea and raw silk has ended, the export tax on tea has been increased to 10%, the export tax on raw silk has reached 15%, and the industrial enterprises that have been providing preferential tax rates in the past have also begun to levy business tax, up to 10%, plus tax items such as transaction tax, the tax borne by Daming industrial enterprises has reached 30% of sales.

In the case that the industry has not yet fully developed, this practice has made the silk reeling industry, which is deeply affected by the international economic recession, even more unsustainable, and the enthusiasm for investing in factories has long stopped, and even a large number of factories have been suspended.

In this case, it is obviously impossible to continue to increase taxes.

Therefore, there are only other ways to worry about money, fundraising is the lowest cost, and various guilds and chambers of commerce are the main force of fundraising.

The Ming government called for fundraising from all walks of life, but this kind of fundraising still cannot be compared with the government's actions, and only 20 million donations were raised last year.

The government also saved money by reducing spending, and Chen Zhiting took the lead in donating half of the money until the famine ended.

Zhu Jinglun expressed his support for this, and he also announced that the palace would reduce its expenses by half, and the government had given the emperor 300,000 taels of maintenance every year, which was used for the maintenance of various facilities in the palace and the payment of more than 500 male and female servants, only 100,000 taels were used for the expenses of Zhu Jinglun's family, which was a huge expense for ordinary people, but for an emperor with a population of 80 million, this was already quite frugal, and the Empress Dowager Cixi could not be compared at all.

Zhu Jinglun not only reduced the palace expenses to support disaster relief, but also began auctioning royal goods this year to raise funds.

All kinds of palace supplies were taken out, and a large number of antique calligraphy and paintings that were transferred from the Forbidden City to the Ming Dynasty appeared in various auctions held in various places, which was already the last batch of Qing palace collections, and those high-value gold, silver, pearls and jade had already been sold in batches in these years.

And these antique calligraphy and paintings are because of the fear of being destroyed, so they have not been sold, and now through the Ming royal hand, this is not only the Qing palace collection, but also the Ming Emperor's royal things, with the Ming government rule more and more stable over the years, Zhu Jinglun's reputation in the Ming Dynasty is also increasing day by day, and he has been careful to create his own prestige, not only in the Ming Dynasty, but even in the West has won an enlightened reputation, so he has the title of Ming Jun on his head.

Now his prestige, to these collections to a huge value-added, after so many years of opening, industry has achieved a certain degree of development, in fact, the accumulation of more in the field of commerce, after all, is a large country of 80 million people, and is a relatively rich south, just open the door to do business, it has given countless businessmen huge business opportunities, so in recent years there have been a lot of huge wealth, these people as the benefits of the new country, at the same time the outbreak of household identity and thirst for status and psychological improvement, There is no better way to show their taste than collecting cultural toys, and buying at this time can also respond to the call of the government and win a name of benevolence, why not.

As a result, the collection was sold for a good price, adding 30 million taels of silver to the government's disaster relief funds.

But Zhu Jinglun still continued to support charity disaster relief, for disaster relief, he once again lived a life of pro-farming, this is not a show, nor is it for any wild fun, purely to raise funds, because the rice grown by the emperor himself can be auctioned to a sky-high price, almost equal to gold.

Some are bought by wealthy businessmen to honor their parents, or to give gifts to others.

So the garden of the palace was regarded as a seedling, and was bulldozed by Zhu Jinglun, the land was ploughed and planted with rice again, and ducks and fish were raised, the emperor's duck is a brand that has been passed down for a long time, and the duck seedlings that flowed out of Zhu Jinglun's hands have been touted in various ways, but they are actually ordinary ducks, so there is nothing special except for maintaining a name and being used by businessmen.

Because the folk ducks can't be distinguished, but the ducks that are personally bred by Zhu Jinglun again are absolutely authentic emperor ducks, which can be exchanged for free funds.

After the emperor began to farm, the two concubines who fought openly and secretly in the harem all the year round also had their own ideas, and the second concubine Gao Yuan first told Zhu Jinglun that the male farmer and the female weaver, the emperor is a man, in order to earn money, you can go to farming, she is a woman, and she can also do some textile work, so she took the lead in saying that she would spin and weave in the palace, and the woven materials were sold for disaster relief.

The eldest concubine realized that since Gao Yuan wanted to spin and weave cloth, she would weave cloth, and Gao Yuan bought silkworm cocoons to reel silk and weave thick, so she bought cotton to spin and weave cloth.

So the two bought handlooms in the harem and started the show action of male cultivators and female weavers.

Not to mention, the cotton cloth and silk woven by their hands, although the quality can only be described reluctantly, but there are many people who are enthusiastic, and some people are willing to spend money to collect this kind of material made by the imperial concubine, so that the imperial concubine can serve herself, this is the emperor's treatment, although no one dares to say it because of the idea of imperial power, but the occasional forbidden thought in the heart is more exciting.

Of course, the behavior of the emperor's family also made some old masters feel very uncomfortable, this is the emperor who recognizes the emperor and loves the emperor's Ming literati, they feel that the emperor has to worry about money in this way, it is too difficult for the emperor's family, and those old diehards who have never accepted the Zhu dynasty want to sarcastically mock the Ming Dynasty for having no rules, and the emperor serves the small people, without any condescension and humility, which is simply a smile and generosity.

With the encouragement of the emperor's family, more money was raised by the people this year, and many ordinary people also began to donate.

As for the efforts of Zhu Jinglun's family, in fact, they were only sold for a few million taels, but the impact caused by this way could not be exchanged for hundreds of millions of taels of silver.

Zhu Jinglun is proving in this way that in order to save the lives of his compatriots in the north, the people of the Ming Dynasty have done their best, the government of the Ming Dynasty has done their best, and the emperor of the Ming Dynasty has also done their best.

Of course, Zhu Jinglun's biggest purpose in disaster relief is to save lives itself, but if he has mixed political purposes with it, it is to express to the common people, literati, doctors and businessmen under the rule of the Manchu Qing Dynasty through this kind of action, that is, the government and emperor of the Ming Dynasty are to love the people under the rule of the Manchu Dynasty as their own people.

For the people of the Ming Dynasty, it is necessary to launch this disaster relief operation with the participation of the whole people, so that everyone can feel that the people of the Ming Dynasty and the people of the Manchu Qing Dynasty are still brothers and sisters, and they should be in the same boat.

In fact, it is in this way that the people of the north and the people of the south recognize each other and enhance the cohesion of the entire Chinese nation.

Zhu Jinglun has always been worried that if the international situation does not permit, the Ming Dynasty may not be able to unify the whole country for a long time, in that case, with the economic gap between the Ming Dynasty and the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the educational and cultural gap gradually widens, so it is easy to create a sense of estrangement among the same ethnic group in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and when this sense of estrangement lasts long enough, a nation will be divided into two nations.

East Germans suffered a long history of discrimination during the East and West German period. On the Korean Peninsula, there are even a number of voices that do not regard the North Koreans as a nation. The estrangement between the Taiwan compatriots in China and the mainland, and the various rejection mentality of the Hong Kong people towards the mainlanders, are all caused by the estrangement.

If a disaster relief operation can greatly compensate for the alienation caused by an estrangement, it is very cost-effective in any case, but as for the cost, what is the financial burden, what is the economic hardship, and what is the huge foreign debt on the back?

In the future, whenever everyone recalls this difficult period, officials will sigh how hard everyone worked for the compatriots in the north back then, businessmen will recall how heavy the taxes were for the compatriots in the north, and the hundreds of millions of dollars in debts on the books are telling again and again how great the efforts of the Ming government to help the compatriots are, and further establish the image of the Ming Dynasty, the only responsible government on the East Asian continent, in the Western world, so that the Ming Dynasty will unify the country in the future and get greater support from public opinion.

In short, once any cost is related to saving lives, uniting the nation, and unifying the country, it will not seem so expensive, and compared with the possible future benefits, this cost is not too big no matter how you look at it.

Of course, any investment is risky, if the Ming Dynasty can not dominate the country in the future, this investment will fail, no return, once the unification is completed, the potential benefits of this investment will be extremely rich. And to dominate the world, whether this goal can be achieved has never been doubted in the hearts of the Ming monarchs.

Even over the years, the call for the Northern Expedition has never been cut off, many people think that the Ming Dynasty has the power to dominate the world, and this natural disaster in the north makes everyone feel that the opportunity has come, so in the public opinion of disaster relief, the concept of China's unique division must be combined for a long time has also issued a strong public opinion call.

Among them, the Daming Army, which was presided over by the Shaozhuang faction, was the most enthusiastic about the Northern Expedition, and in the periodicals and newspapers published by the military, various military renderings of the Northern Expedition were carried out one after another, and a strong will to unify the world was condensed in the army.

This phenomenon made Zhu Jinglun extremely worried, and in the 19th century, a common problem in the armies of various countries, the blind optimism about war, actually appeared in the Daming army!