Although the Daming Times could not be fully incorporated into the imperial court system, for these cabinet ministers, today's negotiations with the emperor have undoubtedly made a good start.

For them, as long as the emperor loosens a hole, then the next time is to go into the water and grind the kung fu. As long as they subtly influence the change, they do not think that the emperor's control of the Daming Times can be maintained forever. No matter how wise Chongzhen is, he can't interfere in the affairs of future generations.

Just like when Taizu abolished the prime minister, when he became the ancestor, he restored the cabinet that replaced the prime minister. The original cabinet was just a body that drafted official documents for the emperor, but by the time of Chengzu's death, the power of the cabinet had almost surpassed that of the six ministries.

After Chengzu, the power of the cabinet became greater and greater. In modern times, the cabinet is not much different from the prime minister at the beginning of the country. It can be seen that no matter how powerful the emperor's power is, as long as he can open an opening for them, time will always wear away the intentions of the founders, and let those who come after them formulate new rules.

When several ministers were satisfied and wanted to move back to the next topic, Li Tianjing suddenly said: "This time, Houjin tore up the peace treaty and made a detour to invade the land of our Guannei.

Although relying on His Majesty Hongfu and our border soldiers to repel the enemy army with their lives, we must always punish these Tartar captives, otherwise our emperor will not be majestic in front of the surrounding countries?

If everyone thinks that as long as the soldiers are strong and strong, they can come to my Ming Dynasty to plunder, and if they fail, they can retreat unharmed, and my Ming border will probably be peaceful in the future..."

Without waiting for Chongzhen to speak, Huang Liji had quickly interrupted Li Tianjing's words and said: "Changde, we all know about your heart for Huang Ming, but how can the current Ming Dynasty still raise a sword again?" Not to mention the others, the two war debts spent just to expel the Houjin invasion army have now made the imperial court anxious.

If you have to punish Houjin or something, I'm afraid the imperial court will no longer be able to continue to raise this additional expense. What's more, if you want to punish the Houjin army, it is equivalent to letting my Ming army go deep into Liaodong and attack a fortified city like Liaoshen.

Although our army won two battles in the field this time, most of them were fought by the Mongols. Now to attack Liaodong, you must fight against the elite soldiers of the Eight Banners of Jiannu, which may not have much chance of winning. It was not easy for my emperor to recover some morale and people's hearts, and he couldn't take it so easily to gamble with Jiannu, Changde still gave up this idea. ”

Li Tianjing immediately defended himself and said: "Huang Shoufu, the punishment I am talking about is not to ask our army to attack Liaoshen and fight with Jiannu again. I mean, when we reached a peace treaty with Houjin, we agreed to open Jinzhou and Yingkou as ports for mutual markets.

But now that Jiannu has torn up the peace treaty and made a detour to invade the Guannei area of Jizhou, then why do we still have to abide by this peace treaty? I mean, it's better to interrupt the mutual market between Jinzhou and Yingkou, and prohibit the import of living materials from Houjin in my Ming Dynasty, so as to hit the lives of the people of Houjin. ”

Li Tianjing's words made Huang Liji silent, but Guo Yunhou, the head of the household who was sitting opposite Huang Liji, was anxious, and he loudly objected to Li Tianjing's plan: "It is absolutely impossible to interrupt the mutual market, now Tianjin is already the most prosperous commercial and trade city in the north of my Ming Dynasty, and the city paid more than 600,000 yuan in industrial and commercial taxes last year, which not only paid the salaries of local officials, but also solved a lot of local water conservancy and public construction costs.

The most outstanding industry and commerce in Tianjin are none other than six trades: timber, leather, grain processing, oil extraction, fishing, and iron and steel products.

Most of the raw materials for the timber industry, leather industry, grain processing industry, and oil extraction industry come from the Northeast, and three or four percent of the finished products produced here are sold back to the Northeast.

If, according to Changde, these two ports are cut off, Tianjin's industrial and commercial tax revenue will drop sharply this year, and at least tens of thousands of workers will lose their jobs. Isn't the gathering of these unemployed workers in Tianjin a source of chaos? You're punishing Houjin here, aren't you punishing my people in Tianjin? ”

Li Tianjing opened his mouth and was unable to answer Guo Yunhou's criticism for a while. Although he was a person who admired new learning, he really didn't know much about economics, so he didn't expect to be criticized by Guo Yunhou on this issue.

Qian Qianyi, who was sitting next to Li Tianjing, was a little dissatisfied with Guo Yunhou's words of forgetting his righteousness, and he immediately retorted for Li Tianjing: "Guo Shangshu's words are too arbitrary, I want to ask Guo Shangshu, even if we don't interrupt the mutual market port between the two places, how can you be sure that Jiannu will not do this?"

Since Jiannu was able to tear up the peace treaty and make a detour to invade the Guannai, they were naturally ready to cut off trade with our Ming Dynasty. Perhaps, Jiannu will pretend to be a trade caravan, and then take the opportunity to attack my Jinzhou City, I don't know. I think Changde is right, instead of giving Jiannu another chance to sneak attack or humiliate us, it is better to cut off the mutual market with Jiannu first.

As for the workers in Tianjin, let the local officials in Tianjin be able to control their livelihoods, and as long as the officials below are attentive, I think that the situation as Shangshu said, should not happen. ”

Guo Yunhou suddenly said angrily: "The livelihood of tens of thousands of people is behind thousands of households, you let the local officials control their livelihoods, and the local officials are not immortals, how can they turn into food?" If you don't eat for one day, you'll starve, and if you don't eat for three days, you'll die, do you plan to let these people starve to death at home? ”

Guo Yunhou was angry, but Qian Qianyi softened first, and hurriedly defended himself: "Why should Guo Shangshu misinterpret my meaning, I said let the local officials control it well, of course, I want to find something else to do for them, they are all people with hands and feet, how can they not find a way to live?" There is no reason to starve people to death..."

Seeing that other people also wanted to join in this controversy, Huang Liji quickly interrupted the quarrel between the two and said: "Okay, okay, this is the cabinet chamber, not a teahouse and wine shop, just let the two of you explain things clearly, don't quarrel endlessly."

In my opinion, what both sides said is not unreasonable, and it just so happens that Your Majesty is here, so it is better to ask Your Majesty to decide whether it is appropriate to interrupt the trade between the two countries, or continue to maintain the status quo. ”

Zhu Youzhen, who had been watching the argument coldly, heard Huang Liji's request for instructions to him, and saw that other people also turned their eyes to him, so he couldn't help but nodded slightly and said: "A few gentlemen want me to express their opinions, to be honest, my thoughts are like this, whether it is to break off trade with Houjin, or to continue to maintain the current trade relations, shouldn't this depend on whether or not to echo the interests of my Ming Dynasty?"

Mr. Li and Mr. Qian advocated the interruption of trade, which was to maintain the prestige of the Ming Dynasty in the surrounding countries, that is, to safeguard the political interests of our Ming Dynasty, and I felt that there was nothing wrong with this proposition..."

Li Tianjing and Qian Qianyi's faces suddenly looked much better, Guo Yunhou looked at the emperor and wanted to say something, but finally held back. Then Chongzhen continued: "But Mr. Guo advocates maintaining the trade between the two families, and I don't think it's a problem, after all, this involves the livelihood of tens of thousands of people in my Ming Dynasty, and it is also for the economic interests of the Ming Dynasty not to be lost..."

Although Guo Yunhou breathed a sigh of relief in his heart, after hearing the emperor's evaluation of both sides, he suddenly thought that the emperor was about to make peace with the mud, and he thought in his heart that he must not back down on this issue. In today's north, Beijing and Tianjin have become two of the most important manufacturing cities.

In the past, the most troublesome thing about Cao Yun was only three things, one was to ensure the water volume of the canal; the second is the maintenance and repair of the canal; The third is that the ships go back and forth between the north and the south, and the ships going north are heavy cargo, and the ships going south are often empty, which greatly wastes the capacity of the ships.

Since the rise of industry in Beijing and Tianjin, in addition to the rapid development of shipping, the gradual balance of north-south freight has also begun to emerge in the transportation of water. Unlike the gentry and bureaucrats in the south who controlled the customs and wantonly evaded taxes, the goods transported from Tianjin to the south were completely under the supervision of officials sent by the Ministry of Households, and this was also the largest cash input of the Ministry of Household Affairs on weekdays.

The industrial and commercial development speed of Beijing and Tianjin has not stagnated, and it is still developing rapidly, that is to say, the tax customs set up in Tianjin by the household department will become the second largest entry after the salt tax in the next few days.

When Guo Yunhou was still thinking about how to convince the emperor, Zhu Youzhen had already continued: "Whether it is economic interests or political interests, they are indispensable interests for the Ming Dynasty.

What kind of interests do we want to choose, we need to take a look at what interests are beneficial to our Ming Dynasty. And when it comes to what is most conducive to the interests of the Ming Dynasty, then we have to examine it first, the government... That is, what is the meaning of the existence of the imperial court?

If we can't even understand the meaning of the existence of the imperial court, what are the interests of the Ming Dynasty? That is undoubtedly just begging for fish in the wood and fishing for the moon in the water.

I would like to ask you gentlemen, what exactly is the imperial court? What is the purpose of me sitting here with gentlemen and discussing the affairs of these countries? ”

Chongzhen's words suddenly made Huang Liji and the others a little overwhelmed, even Xu Guangqi, who had the most contact with the emperor, couldn't understand what Chongzhen's question meant.

Under the emperor's gaze and invitation, starting from Huang Liji, every cabinet minister had to answer Chongzhen's question head-on. But most of them can only find some vague remarks from the Four Books and Five Classics, which sound very exciting, but after calming down and thinking about it, they find that there is basically nothing except to arouse the emotions of others.

The cabinet ministers sitting around the conference table took turns to finish their opinions, but they found that they and their colleagues could not convince them, let alone Chongzhen, who kept shaking his head.