Chapter 7 Tianjin (I)

In recognition of Shen Mo's immortal achievements over the years, Emperor Wanli instructed the cabinet to arrange the return journey of Funanhui according to the highest standards. On the day of departure on May 27, hundreds of officials went to Xuanwumen to send off, although Wanli did not come in person, but also sent the celebrant to write Zhang Whale, as a representative of the Son of Heaven, accompanied Shen Mo Nangui to pay tribute. He also personally sent Wu Xiang general Zhu Yingzhen to lead a thousand imperial forest troops to protect them along the way.

This specification is no different from the emperor, and he tried his best to thank him, but everything was from the will of Emperor Wanli, and he could only accept it. However, Shen Mo was not completely submissive, he used the reason that the big team was too slow, he wanted to throw off the guard of honor and take the first step himself.

Zhang Jing and Zhu Yingzhen naturally refused to agree, and Shen Mo didn't expect them to agree, so he took a step back, so let my family go first, and the big team slowly swallowed up, disrespectful to the ancestors. Although he has paid tribute, he has still accumulated power for many years, and Zhang Whale and Zhu Yingzhen only allocated a hundred men and horses to escort Shen Ge's family to go first.

But the third lady had to stay with him, Mrs. Yin knew that she was strong in martial arts and shrewd, and she could take care of Shen Mo and not become a drag, so she left her behind despite Shen Mo's objections.

The mighty dangdang team marched on the flat official road, the carriage that was silently ridden, almost did not feel the bumps, he stood by his side, looking back at Wei Que who was gradually moving away, but what appeared in his eyes was the scene of the past twenty-five years, ups and downs, joys and sorrows, glory and shame, noble and humble, everything he had, all of which were deeply entangled with this city......

The third lady stood beside him, her eyes were complicated in the same place, and Liang asked, "Can we still come back?" ”

"Why, you haven't been in this birdcage enough?" A smile appeared on her grim face.

"Of course it's enough, what's the difference between going to prison and going to jail if you don't go out of the door all day?" The third lady flicked her forehead, and a trace of determination appeared on her beautiful face: "But if you don't conquer this city, how can you avenge my husband?" ”

"......" was silent and silent, and then nodded slowly: "Will come back......"

Looking far away, the city of Beijing became more and more visible, and finally disappeared from his sight.

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Because the water level of the Grand Canal was low and the ships were impassable, the escort team decided to return to Jiangnan by sea, so after leaving Beijing, the team headed for Tianjin.

Tianjin, named after Emperor Chengzu's soldiers who won the world, has not been under the jurisdiction of local administration, but has set up guards and exercised military control. For the next 200 years, it has been existing and developed as a gateway to the capital and a grain transshipment, and its main function is to serve the capital Beijing in terms of military and transportation, rather than to develop its own economy.

Therefore, even if the commodity economy in the southeast is booming, there has been little change here for a long time. In the forty-third year of Jiajing, Shen Mo was ordered to go south, and once took a boat in Tianjin, and the situation he saw at that time was no different from the early days of the dynasty. Shen Mo was very surprised by this and conducted some research. In the research report, he faithfully recorded:

'The land is not a thoroughfare, so there are no rich merchants, if the corn is bought outside the Guandong Mouth, the silk is from Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Beijing, and there are many indigenous people and few guests. Although the castle has its own market, the market has its own time, the sun rises and gathers, the sun disperses, the exchange is only cotton cloth, fish and salt, for the use of the people. ’

He put the reason why Tianjin did not rise, attributed to the four words 'land is not thoroughfare', but in fact, Tianjin's geographical location is extremely superior, open the map will appear, here is the south to the north, east out of the west into the water 6 transportation hub: with the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and the Haihe River as the framework, to the north can lead to the northeast and, to the west to borrow 6 roads to Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Tibet, east out of the Bohai Sea and the coastal areas are connected, the traffic is very convenient, how will it be 'the land is not a thoroughfare'?

In fact, this is not surprising, no matter how advantageous the geographical location is, it still needs to be used. The transportation of materials between the north and the south is carried by Cao, and although Tianjin is adjacent to the Grand Canal, the distance between it and Tongzhou is too close, and if it is a city along the canal, there is no need for the root to exist.

It is only with the rise of maritime transport that its importance will be highlighted. The superiority of shipping is all-round, and in the Yuan Dynasty it was the main transshipment mode of grain transfer from the south to the north, and the way of the Yuan Dynasty was not continued, not for technical reasons, but completely in political factors, so that the implementation of the sea ban policy of 'not going to the sea', which made Tianjin like a pearl méng dust no one applauded, and it was deserted for nearly two hundred years.

With the country's longevity, population growth, and economic development, the contradiction between the inefficiency and unreliability of water transportation became more and more acute, and the call for the abolition of water transportation and the resumption of sea transportation became louder. However, more than 100 years have made Caoyun no longer a simple mode of transportation, but has become a huge deformed interest body. Millions of Caoding and their families, many canal-related governments, and those who have become rich because of the canal are desperately opposed to shipping, which also makes Tianjin's road to revitalization close at hand, but far away.

Shen Mo has never spared no effort to revitalize industry and commerce, and since he has realized the crux of the problem, he naturally has to do his best to solve the problem -- the prescription he gave was to 'open the port'.

He disagrees with many officials' idea of 'abolishing the water and replacing it with the sea', because that is unrealistic at this stage. Despite all its drawbacks, it feeds at least a few million people. For a country, all internal affairs are the people's rice bowls, and the people will not rebel if they have something to eat.

We must be cautious about the digestion of the million-and-a-half militarized Caoding, and Caoyun cannot be canceled until this problem is resolved. But in addition to the official transportation, there is also unofficial commercial transportation. Don't worry about him, as long as the businessman is given the opportunity to choose, then the low-cost, low-loss, high-efficiency, high-capacity shipping will inevitably replace the pit daddy transportation and become the choice of commercial transportation. The only problem is the sea ban, although forced by the financial crisis, the Jiajing Emperor opened several port cities in the south, but the sea ban has not been lifted, especially the Bohai Bay, which is the sea gate of the capital, is strictly forbidden for private ships to enter and exit.

If you want to open Tianjin Port during the Jiajing period, you can't even think about it.

Even in the Longqing period, the silence that had already entered the cabinet as the prime minister still could not break this barrier. Even though the people's voices are rising, the conservative Fu Xu Jiejie just refuses to let go. The reason why Shen Mo and Xu Jie are full of contradictions is due to many reasons, including the dispute over the 'opening of the port of Tianjin', and he once criticized this turtle policy in front of Emperor Longqing. In fact, it was caused by the isolation of the country, and he strongly advocated the establishment of a strong navy to defend against the enemy on the sea frontier.

This was a natural conflict with Xu Gelao, who pursued a traditional policy of locking the country, and after a treacherous struggle, Xu Jie was forced to give up. It may be that in the 200 years of the National Dynasty, Gao Gong, the best reformer, came to power, and he fully supported the silent law, and the two finally contributed to the complete lifting of the sea ban, and civilian ships could finally sail into the mouth of Tianjin.

As soon as Tianjin opened its port, it ushered in a golden opportunity for the exhibition -- the imperial court was preparing to start a war to recover the Hetao, and from the beginning of the preparation period for the war, Beijing's demand for materials increased tenfold, and Cao Yungen could not afford even one-third of the volume. At this time, Tianjin, as a transshipment port for shipping, finally stepped onto the stage of history. Almost overnight, ships and vehicles from the north and south gathered here, and ships and merchant ships rushed in one after another, and played a powerful pivotal role throughout the war.

After the successful re-set, the imperial court's demand for materials fell, but Tianjin was still prosperous. After three years of vital development, it has naturally replaced Tongzhou as the largest material distribution center and transshipment center in the north. Even if the grain is no longer transported, there are still handicrafts, spices, medicinal materials, porcelain, gold and silver products, paper, silk, etc. from the south, and a large number of materials from the north and south, such as soybeans, flowers, dried fruits, sugar, medicinal materials, and timber, are concentrated here, and then transferred to the east and west, north and south.

However, the biggest contribution to Tianjin's rocket-like rise was the 'wool trade'. Wool has always been abundant in the grasslands and the northwest, but for thousands of years, its use was limited to the local people's own use, and most of it was abandoned because it was not used. On the other hand, woolen wool exported from Europe is more expensive than gold, and woolen clothing made from it is highly sought after by the wealthy class. Wool, on the other hand, is the raw material for making wool.

Back then, sheep in England ate people, just to shear as many sheep as possible and produce wool. It is no exaggeration to say that this kind of high-end clothing has the same high value as silk, and the amount produced cannot meet the market. The infinite business opportunities contained in this have deeply attracted the attention of Jin businessmen who are suffering from the inability to open up overseas markets.

Overseas trade is endlessly profitable, and this is a truth that children know. But to make a profit from it, you either engage in maritime transportation or have goods to sell. The dangers and long journeys of sea transportation determine that only high-value, high-profit goods are eligible to be loaded onto ships. Therefore, although there are more than 1,000 kinds of goods exported, the real main force is still silk, tea and porcelain.

What made the Jin merchants very depressed was that these three things were all produced in the southeast, and it was as difficult as snatching food from the bowls of those shrewd southeastern merchants. And the sea transportation is monopolized by the merchants of Fujian and Guangzhou, and they, the northerners, cannot intervene in the sky.

Jin merchants dreamed of having a product that they could get their hands on and help them occupy a considerable market share. So they were willing to pay money and help the imperial court recover the Hetao, just to obtain the wool production area!

As soon as the re-enactment was successful, the merchants with huge silver tickets and the herdsmen in urgent need of supplies appeared on the grassland. They used every means to encourage the herders to raise sheep for them. The wool is then processed into primary 'sheep cloth' in Ordos and Hohhot, and then transported to Beijing, Taiyuan and other places, spun into woolen wool, and finally transported to Tianjin for sale.

Wool is bought very cheaply, but woolen wool is sold very expensive. This woolen production and marketing system with grassland as the end market and Tianjin as the end market has begun to take shape after more than ten years of exhibition. Its most intuitive embodiment is the changes in Tianjin City in the past ten years......

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When he returned to Tianjin after 16 years of silence, he no longer knew this place at all. The cramped earthen city in his impression was no longer to be found, and in its place was a new city ten times the area. The city is no longer dirty, messy, and unruly alleys, but now the streets are wide and flat, the houses are neat, the roadside shops are lined up, and the shops are gathered. On the road, pedestrians and ants gather bees, goods are like mountains and piles of fortresses, cars, donkeys, sedan chairs and horses, and the river is endless. The place of the boat, the gathering of merchants, and the miscellaneous places of the people of the five directions, although the name is called Wei, it is really beyond the reach of a metropolis!

Merchants from all over the country have set up guilds here, actively carry out trade activities, in just more than ten years, Tianjin has shown a flourishing of thousands of merchants, unprecedented trend. And the Jin merchants finally had the trade center they had always dreamed of.

As soon as he inquired that Shen Mo was coming, the officials and wealthy businessmen of Tianjin City were busy in full swing, cleaning up the roads he was going to pass, painting the houses on both sides of the street, and putting all the idlers and scoundrels on the street in prison for a few days, so that Shen Ge Lao could be the most beautiful side of Tianjin.

Silence can naturally get out of the cat, but he is going back to worry, not to inspect, naturally there is no need to break it, not to mention that the earth-shaking changes are real, which is enough to make him happy.

He was in Tianjin City in the car, and the officials and people of Tianjin City were also on the side of the road. His procession numbered more than 1,500 people, and they rode through the city, their hooves fluttering on the colorful flags, their crowns like clouds, and their chariots like clusters, and everyone had to praise with envy and jealousy: 'Might!'

Because it was a mourning, Shen Mo had already let people say hello, and no one was allowed to greet him. After entering the city, he did not stop in the city, but went straight to the Zizhulin official ship wharf.

In front of the official pavilion on the wharf, red felt has been paved, and the civil and military officials, squires and wealthy businessmen on the ground in Tianjin have been waiting for a long time. As soon as they arrived at the axe and Yue honor guard of the guide team, the flag fan, and the well-trained gong and drum team, they worked hard to play the "Guiding Phoenix Tune" to welcome the saint's trip.

Hearing the noise of gongs and drums outside the car, the third lady frowned and said, "It's clear that you are not allowed to greet you, why is there such a big pomp?" ”

"It's just a habit of officialdom." Silently put down the book in his hand and said: "They think I'm just just, what to do, or how to do it." ”

"Hypocrisy......" the third lady pouted.

"Alright, get out of the car." Shen Mo straightened the corner belt of Tsing Yi on his body and got up.

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I guess someone is going to irrigate again, but when it's time to finish writing, do you feel that this water is really difficult? Ro！。