The men immediately unpacked the boxes, and all kinds of gifts were prepared except for muskets. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

Naturally, it was impossible for eunuchs to come directly to this group of people without an order, and even if there was an order to bribe money, it was necessary.

The eunuchs of the Imperial Horse Prison were extremely happy to see that these people were selling generously and giving them very generously, and there were many rare things, and they did not show any disdain.

Before coming to the capital, Chen Jian told these people that they must learn to bribe and come up with enough funds for bribes.

Eunuchs love money, and they probably don't have anything to love besides money, but it doesn't have to be gold and silver, and some rare utensils such as zebra skins named after Lushu of Peizhi Yiyang are even more amazing gifts.

Jian Chen was sure that Emperor Wanli would also like zebra skins, which was a good implication.

Because the ministers always tell the emperor the story of the more children and grandchildren, the longer the life, the emperor is quite superstitious about this, and the deer skin of the descendants of Pei Zhiyi is not a tonic that is easy to have accidents, and it is a story in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas".

As early as a few years ago, when Shen was always an elder, he fooled Wanli all day long, saying that "many sons and grandchildren, it is called Quanfu".

Except for Taizu and Chengzu, most of the remaining emperors were short-lived. And Shen has always said that you see Taizu has twenty-five sons and one hundred and twenty-one grandsons, and Chengzu has four sons and twenty-one grandsons, and they all lived for more than sixty.

Wanli still cares about longevity, and it may be that Wanli has some difficulties in giving birth to a baby at this time, so Shen has always patched it again, saying that it doesn't have to be a son, and many grandchildren can live a long life, and encouraged the prince Fuwang to be strong.

Although they are all their own sons, they are more important than their lives. If he could offer a few deer skins that were suitable for his descendants at this time, the emperor would be pleased, and perhaps he would stipulate that his sons must be on zebra skins when they run errands at night.

Chen Jian got these things, it can be said that they are all good at Xingchen and eunuchs, but it turns out that this is indeed a shortcut.

The level of education of the Portuguese is not high, although they have colonies in Mozambique, they probably have not read the Classic of Mountains and Seas, and they don't understand what the emperor likes at all, let alone think about catching giraffes, zebras and other things as gifts.

The Dutch have a lower level of education, and they use the European way of dealing with diplomacy to deal with the Ming Dynasty, and they look like they will make a few broken ships as a threat of force at every turn, but in fact they don't have this strength at all and are disgusting.

At this point, Chen Jian still has a great advantage, a few years ago, when Matteo Ricci met him, he just took out some things like a self-striking bell, and Chen Jian had many more good things in his hands than a self-striking bell and the like.

This matter can be regarded as an attitude, and when the ministers didn't know what to do, the two pieces from Fujian caused an uproar.

One is the request of the Fujian Provincial Imperial History Fang Damei to be exempted from assistance.

“…… In the past two years, disasters have occurred in Fujian every year. First there was an earthquake, and then there was a raging wind. ”

Therefore the minister asked for the exemption of the four things. Fujian's grain, strip whips, taxes, and retention were all exempted. ”

"The minister also asked for two kinds of help, first, to help those who have nothing to rely on, and second, to help those who will have to work next year......

So far, this is a perfectly normal letter. But after that, the content is very different from the past.

"This time, Fujian was the most affected, with Quanzhou being the most serious. But compared with the catastrophe a few years ago, the death toll in Quanzhou has dropped. ”

"On the one hand, it was because the people who claimed to be the country of the far west brought rice, which helped stabilize the price of rice, so that some profiteers could not benefit from the catastrophe."

"On the other hand, these people taught how to grow sweet potatoes and brought in a lot of sweet potatoes as seeds."

"Both of these things have been very effective. Therefore, the minister has two opinions. ”

"Nowadays, there are many merchant ships that go out to trade, and rice is produced in Annam, Siam and other places. Fujian is sparsely populated and has many disasters, so it is appropriate to meet the tax and silver of rice that is transported abroad, and fix the tax of one cent of silver per stone, and do not ask the tax supervisor Gao Yu and others to overcharge. If we could force all the ships that went out to trade to carry some rice, we could guarantee the price of grain in Fujian and other places. Fujian itself is not a land of fish and rice, and there is no danger of rice hurting farmers. ”

"And the sweet potato thing has now been effective, with a large yield per mu, which can satisfy hunger and taste sweet. Many hungry people in Quanzhou live and do not die, which is a very suitable food for disaster preparedness. ”

"Those people in the far west country say that it is better to teach people to fish than to teach them to fish, and there are two major difficulties in the promotion of this sweet potato, but the "Sweet Potato Preparedness Law" made by these people can be solved."

"The first difficulty is the method of transplanting seedlings, which is difficult to grow, so that the seedlings are grown. In the "Sweet Potato Preparation Law", it is said that people can hold bamboo poles and turn over the sweet potato seedlings every few days. In this way, it will not be close to the soil, and it will not take root. ”

"The second difficulty is storage in the north, the "Sweet Potato Preparation Law" says that the cellar can be dug to store sweet potatoes, especially in Henan, Shandong, Shaanxi and other places, there is no rain, and the storage cellar will not rot."

"After the catastrophe, there is no time to harvest rice and wheat, but there is no need to worry about sweet potatoes, they can be harvested in three months, and the seedlings can also satisfy hunger."

"Now that Feng Yi is raging in the south of the Yangtze River and there is drought and chaos in the north, if it can be promoted in the disaster area, this is to show Your Majesty's benevolence."

"I have ordered people to plant sweet potatoes as seedlings in Fujian, and I have asked for permission to promote them in some disaster-stricken areas in the north, and they can be transported by sea boat......

As soon as this piece arrived in the capital, it caused a huge response.

Not long ago, Ye Xianggao just stated the disaster situation of the flood in the south and the drought in the north of the country at this time, and this piece naturally had a different effect at this time.

The other letter was also sent from Fujian.

first talked about the Japanese Invaders, and then said that the Japanese Invaders have been making trouble everywhere in the past few years, and the sea waves are really a disaster.

"Now Fujian is not only the Japanese Kou, but also the Hongyi, Helan, Luzon, and the Japanese Kou, and there is a new Yi who claims to be the Xia Kingdom, how should these people be treated? Is it differential or non-discriminatory? This is up to Your Majesty to decide. ”

"In the old days, sailors had big ships and fast boats. When dealing with the Japanese pirates, we relied on large ships to drive them out and fast boats to pursue them, which was originally our strength. ”

"But now the Woko have learned our methods, and their ships have grown bigger and faster."

"Some people say that it must be because the traitors of the dynasty have secretly conspired with them to spread these technologies, so they ask for a strict ban on the sea. He even hoped to regard the Wakos, Helan, Luzon, Xia and other countries as well, because the Wakos must have learned from them. I don't think that's right. ”

"The minister thinks that there is a reason why there is an endless stream of traitors who are collaborators, and they must not be banned."

"If you want to completely ban it, you can only ban a piece of sail from entering the sea, and you must ban all fishermen and market buyers."

"It's just that Fujian has a lot of mountains and little arable land, and many people rely on trade or fishing for their livelihood, which is their life, so there is no way to cut it off."

"If the township is allowed to strictly implement the law of joint sitting, as long as it is found that those who go to sea sit together, it can indeed be stopped, but chaos will also occur."

"Those who were born in the interior but drifted to the sea have already committed a great taboo, but they are concerned about their homeland and admire Your Majesty's divine grace. Once they sit in the forbidden sea, these people who have drifted on the sea may never come back, so they will instead help the Japanese and even join the Japanese Kou. ”

"Fujian lives on the sea, and there are tens of thousands of people in Quanzhou and Zhangzhou. Once the sea is forbidden and the joint sitting is implemented, this is tens of thousands of widows, so it must not be forbidden. ”

"Indeed, there were traitors who fornicated with the Japanese and traded with them. But in addition to the Japanese invaders, these merchants also traveled to other places such as Luzon. Luzon is the place where the eunuchs of the Three Treasures went when they went to the ocean, and this is all recorded. ”

"Every year, more than 40 ships go from Zhangzhou to Luzon, and they bring back more than 40,000 yuan in military money and silver, and feed more people, which is a good thing in the favor."

"Although there had been a massacre of my people in Luzon before, on the one hand, those people were to blame, and on the other hand, the chiefs of Luzon also returned the money and goods and knew how terrible the power of heaven was. Therefore, the Luzon and the Japanese cannot be treated equally. ”

"In addition to Luzon, there is now another Xia Kingdom in the far west. They showed benevolence and righteousness during the Quanzhou disaster, and really admired Chinese culture, and asked to send some students who were proficient in the words of the saints to the Xia Kingdom to educate them, which was even more different from Luzon and the Wako. ”

"Now they are asking for tribute, and they are asking to stop in Tamsui, obey the laws of the Ming Dynasty, and dare not approach the shores of the Ming Dynasty, so I allow them to stay there temporarily, and they also say that they will not do something to commit adultery."

"They are willing to provide three thousand taels of silver every year as the cost of renting the dock, and hope that His Majesty can send officials to Tamsui to build a Confucian temple and educate and rejuvenate the people."

"If we can trade with them, on the one hand, they will help us to fight against the Japanese in Fujian, after all, they don't want the Japanese to plunder their ships."

"On the other hand, their country is 30,000 miles away from here, and the people they bring in are only a few hundred, so there will be no danger, which is very different from the Japanese Kou."

"Again, their cannons and firearms are sharp, which we can also buy to guard against and deter the four people."

"In addition to these, there is one more thing that the minister must tell His Majesty."

"This Xia country is to the west of Japan, closer to Japan, and they are rich in saltpeter, steel, guns, medicines, and other things that the Japanese need for the Japanese invaders. These are things that we forbid to sell to the Wokos. ”

"If I refuse to trade with them, it will not affect them from crossing the sea to trade directly with the Japanese pirates, which is what I fear the most. In this way, I am afraid that the incident of Guanbai will be repeated again, and the Korean rebellion will reappear. ”

"We refuse to trade with them, lest they become resentful and finance the pirates. Even if they are not on our coast, it is extremely bad that they can transport the goods that the pirates need from their own country. ”

"If the Ministry of Rites can move them with affection, understand them with reason, and educate them so that they do not trade with Japan, it will be a credit for the benefit of the country and the people."

…… The first chapter is only about disaster relief, and the impact is not too great, but it can be regarded as helping Chen Jian.

The second article, on whether to ban the sea and trade with the Xia Kingdom, is a major event—a real foreign affair that the officials of the Ministry of Rites have never been exposed to, not a tributary affair.

For the first time, they had to face the problem of diplomacy, and it was a very serious diplomatic problem, and they even had to get involved in the interaction of the international system in the Pacific region...... If they want to achieve their goals, or if they recognize the seriousness of the problem, they will have to make efforts such as diplomatic and trade agreements.

In fact, it is useless, domestic capital prefers Japanese gold and silver, and the developed handicraft industry and self-sufficient economy of the Ming Dynasty are really not interesting to capital. Yes, the more developed it is, the more interested it is.

It seems impossible to think that the characteristics of capital's profit-seeking can be stopped by indoctrination and the like, otherwise it can rewrite world history.

But if this step can be taken here, whether it succeeds or not, it can be regarded as a huge step that can go down in history.