After listening to Ji Jiliang's report, except for the emperor and Guo Yunhou, the head of the household, the other members of the cabinet were all like Qian Qianyi, and they all fell into shock. Before Chongzhen's accession to the throne, the main work of the Ming Dynasty was to wait for problems to arise before trying to solve them.

However, with the establishment of local statistical bureaus, taxation bureaus, price bureaus, and grain bureaus, the cabinet is no longer ignorant of the situation in various parts of the Ming Dynasty, but this has also led to another problem, and the contradictions that have been delayed and covered up by local officials in various places are clearly placed in front of the cabinet ministers.

Naturally, the cabinet cannot follow the example of those local officials who pretend to be ostriches and ignore these social problems until they erupt. After all, with an emperor like Chongzhen supervising on the side, and being constrained by the cabinet responsibility system after the reform, most of the bureaucrats who want to live a mixed life have been excluded from the cabinet.

But trying to solve problems before they erupt is a difficult transition for the Ming bureaucracy. Except for a small number of officials who entered the official career in order to change this society that is getting worse and worse, most bureaucrats have accepted the long-standing unspoken rules of the Ming officialdom.

In fact, without the emperor's support, any reform would have been regarded by the entire bureaucracy as a matter-of-fact, and the officials who proposed it would have been regarded as heretics in the officialdom.

After all, Zhang Jiangling's reforms had made the officials of the Ming Dynasty realize that the so-called reform was to rob the interests of the bureaucracy and gentry. Even if such a reform is good for the country and the people, what good will it be for the officials?

If it weren't for the persecution of a strong enemy like Houjin outside, and the civilian riots caused by the rebellion of Lu'an and the continuous famine in various places, the bureaucrats and gentry of the Ming Dynasty would never have acquiesced to Chongzhen's promotion of reform.

But even so, the Jiangnan gentry, who did not feel the various threats, were still the backbone of the opposition to the reform of the imperial court. Only those northern gentry, who were genuinely facing social upheaval, would change their old attitudes and support reforms.

If you want to get these bureaucrats whose thinking has been almost solidified by the Four Books and Five Classics, to solve real problems, most of the time they are at a loss. Especially today, we are facing such a macro problem, the contradiction between the population of the Ming Dynasty and the annual grain production.

If Chongzhen picks a random Ming official out now and asks: What if there is a shortage of food in a certain place? 100 percent of the officials will answer: first the imperial court will allocate grain relief from other places, and then build water conservancy in the local area to ensure the harvest next year.

If you ask again: What if it is difficult to allocate grain from other places, and the construction of water conservancy cannot prevent the continuation of drought in the next year? Then most officials will just say: do your best and obey the destiny of heaven. A small number of officials really ask God to worship Buddha in order to ensure that the coming year will be smooth.

With such an answer, Chongzhen will no longer be surprised and indignant now. Because these bureaucrats have been taught since childhood, you can't expect to hear different answers without an external force breaking down their fixed mindsets. Because this is the outlook on life and the world of Chinese scholars: all barbarians outside of China are barbarians... The abundance of Chinese things and the people is not comparable to overseas wild places.

After listening to some clichéd remarks made by Qian Qianyi and other ministers, Zhu Youzhen finally spoke out to stop them and said: "What I want is a solution to the problem, not to listen to what you tell me.

The most fundamental problem facing the Ming Dynasty now is how to solve the problem of feeding these 180 million people, rather than talking about what to do later. If the problem of eating for the people cannot be solved, will there be a future for the Ming Dynasty? ”

Qian Qianyi and the other ministers suddenly stopped talking, Jiang Dejing glanced at his colleagues, gritted his teeth and finally spoke: "Your Majesty, according to what the servant just said, the total grain output of my Ming Dynasty is certainly precarious, but isn't the most criticized problem of unfair grain distribution?"

If the total annual grain production of the Ming Dynasty can be evenly distributed to everyone, then even if the total amount of grain is insufficient, it will not become difficult for the people in some areas to survive.

The minister believed that in the absence of a rapid increase in annual grain production, the imperial court should issue some policies to correct the injustice in grain distribution. For example, the reduction of land rents and the reduction of interest on loans to peasants, etc., so that the people can have more savings in their hands so that they can resist the disaster years..."

After listening to Jiang Dejing's suggestion, Zhu Youzhen glanced at the silent crowd and said: "I think what Mr. Jiang said is right, the imperial court should not only pay attention to the problems of grain production, but also pay attention to the problems of grain distribution. What are the different views of gentlemen on this? If you have a better idea than Mr. Chiang, you might as well keep bringing it up. ”

The last sentence added by the emperor immediately dispelled what several ministers wanted to say. Although they supported the reform, they were a little uncomfortable with this further interference with the gentry landlords' right to manage their own land and the restrictions on the interest on loans in the countryside.

However, it is obviously too difficult for them to come up with ideas that are more effective than Jiang Dejing. Therefore, under the watchful eye of the emperor, they still chose to remain silent.

Zhu Youzhen waited for a few minutes, and when he saw that no one was silent, he opened his mouth and said: "Since everyone has no better suggestions, I think that we should follow Mr. Jiang's proposal and establish a special organization to deal with the problems that arise in grain production and grain distribution, so that the grain bureau can better collect and store grain."

Well, this body is called the Food Committee, and I am the director of the committee, and if there is any problem that cannot be solved, the committee can directly report to me for processing. Guo Shangshu, Mr. Jiang, and Di Shilang serve as the deputy directors of the committee, and the daily work will be handled by you.

Do gentlemen have any objections to my decision? ”

Under the pressure of Chongzhen, Qian Qianyi was the first to take the lead in support: "Your Majesty's decision is very appropriate, and the minister has no objections. As Shousuke spoke, others also expressed their support to the emperor one after another.

Only then did Zhu Youzhen nod and said: "Controlling grain distribution is, after all, only a palliative measure to alleviate local contradictions. In order to finally solve the fundamental contradiction between food and population, it is still necessary to rely on the total annual grain production to be able to meet the needs of the people.

From the current point of view, if we want to increase the total annual grain production, it is nothing more than to start from the following aspects: first, build water conservancy; second, to breed and disseminate improved species, including those introduced from overseas; third, the supply of fertilizers; Fourth, we should speed up investment in overseas agriculture so as to increase the amount of grain imported from overseas.

The first, second, and third items have been carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture, and I think there is no room for improvement for the time being. But for the fourth, I think there's a lot of room for improvement.

Compared with the northern part of the Ming Dynasty, the agricultural production conditions in the southern part of the Ming Dynasty are obviously better, but compared with the southern part of the Ming Dynasty, the agricultural conditions in Vietnam, Cambodia, Saigon, Thailand, the Philippines, Taiwan, Java and other Southeast Asian places are also better.

At present, the amount of more than 700,000 stone of grain imported from overseas in a year is obviously a bit low. I thought that doubling within three years and reaching 30 million stone a year within ten years would be a reasonable goal..."

30 million stone grain, which is almost the output of more than 10 million hectares of fertile land. Qian Qianyi was a little unbearable for a while, "Putting such a lot of pressure on overseas vassal countries all of a sudden, will it cause dissatisfaction among these vassal states?" ”

Guo Yunhou immediately retorted: "Today's situation, you should look inside and then outside. Moreover, the undeveloped land of the feudal states of Southeast Asia abounds, as long as they work hard to cultivate, not to mention 30 million stone of grain, even if it is twice as much.

He believed that the government should also speed up its efforts to emigrate to the vassal states of Southeast Asia. If you immigrate more than 100,000 people every year, it is equivalent to saving 400,000 stone of food, which is also a measure of salary extraction..."

Compared with their counterparts in the cabinet, the household officials are obviously much more flexible and philistine. As for what the emperor said, the issue of increasing the amount of grain imported from overseas can at least bring tens of millions of benefits to the household department every year, which is why Guo Yunhou does not support the emperor.

Guo Yunhou's voice on behalf of the household department made the opposition of the other ministers suddenly low. Under the constraints of the responsibility system, cabinet ministers not only represent themselves, but also consider the interests of their own departments, otherwise they will be abandoned by their subordinates first. At this time, benevolence and morality are obviously less important than monetary interests.

Subsequently, Chongzhen proposed that the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the imperial court jointly invest in the construction of a professional grain transport fleet with a tonnage of no less than 50,000 tons, which finally smoothed out the differences between the household department and other cabinet ministers and ended the discussion on this matter.

In June of the ninth year of Chongzhen, the registered tonnage of Daming merchant ships has exceeded 350,000 tons, and the speed of the increase in the number of merchant ships has greatly exceeded the estimate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Of course, most of these merchant ships are still traditional in style. However, after the imperial court tightened the examination of the specifications and quality of ship construction, and the rapid development of the shipbuilding industry after the full opening of the sea, the price of wood rose, so that many Ming merchants invested heavily in the construction of shipyards in overseas wooded places.

Originally, the domestic ship price of Daming was one-third of the price of overseas ships, but in the ninth year of Chongzhen of Daming, the ships built overseas were one-third cheaper than domestic ships. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that wood from overseas is cheap, and on the other hand, the wood used by overseas ships has different degrees of dryness, resulting in uneven quality of ships.

But in any case, the brutal growth of the shipbuilding industry is trying to make up for the lack of maritime transportation capacity in the Ming Dynasty. The decades-old shipbuilding goals set by Chongzhen in the past now look like they can be achieved in less than ten years.

Domestic: Tianjin, Lianyungang, Nanjing, Shanghai, Ningbo, Fuzhou, Guangzhou; Overseas: Busan, Nagasaki, Osaka, Vladivostok, Keelung, Manila, Boni, Bangkok, Saigon. A total of 16 shipbuilding centers are taking shape, and countless other civilian shipyards are expected to launch nearly 100,000 tons of total tonnage each year.

This rapid development of the shipping industry has also brought the economies of East and Southeast Asia closer together. Of course, the tonnage of ships is also constantly improving, and Chinese merchant ships between 300 and 500 tons are becoming the mainstream ship types sailing in this sea area.

This tonnage class of ships is also the entry level for transoceanic sailing, and even without official encouragement, private merchant ships have begun to set foot in the sea that they have never traveled before. Many islands in the Pacific Ocean are being rediscovered by Ming merchants one by one.

This time, the construction plan of the 50,000-ton grain fleet issued by the imperial court undoubtedly stimulated these shipyards and made the economy of the areas where these shipyards are located more prosperous. The economic prosperity brought about by industrial development has made it difficult for the people in the coastal areas to feel the impact of the disaster-stricken areas in the interior, which has also maintained the social stability of most of China.