New Book Collection: The Rise of Great Powers 1900

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The sixth year of Longwu ushered in the sound of firecrackers, and Yang Chao hugged his daughter with a happy face.

My daughter is three years old this year, she can already walk, and she can already talk about simple things.

The family is happy.

"Daddy, you're so fat!"

Putting her daughter on her lap, her daughter scratched Yang Chao's body indiscriminately, grabbed the fat on Yang Chao's stomach and muttered.

Yang Chao laughed: "Stinky girl, think your father is fat?" Tell you, your father was able to get on the horse back then......"

Yang Chao suddenly stopped talking, and for no reason he was sad, yes, he was also a general who could fight on horseback and lead troops to kill, but now, he suddenly felt why Liu Bei cried when he found himself in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Seeing that her daughter's words suddenly provoked Yang Chao fell silent, Zhu Yujiao immediately hugged her daughter over and scolded her, and her daughter soon began to cry.

"Don't blame Hong'er! Don't scold her. ”

Yang Chao hurriedly hugged his daughter over and coaxed her.

It is indeed easy to destroy heroic ambitions when children are long.

Yang Chao also felt that he was a little slack, some careless, without the original sharpness, he always felt that he raised 100,000 male soldiers, and he was going to go north to the Central Plains to restore the old land, but now he has a million troops, but he has been wandering for almost a year, if he also waved his army north last year, probably the Manchu Qing Dynasty has now fled back to Liaodong in ashes.

Despite such and such objective factors, such as financial chaos, economic contraction. Tax revenues have plummeted. and other unfavorable factors. But it is definitely not impossible to solve it, but he actually ordered the troops, and he didn't do anything for a year, and he sat back and watched heroes like Li Dingguo open and close.

"Uncle, well, look at it, my son kicked me again!"

Seeing that the atmosphere was a little embarrassing, Dong Xiaowan leaned over and rubbed Yang Chao's arm and said.

"What kick? It's only been two months. Hell if you can kick it. ”

Yang Chao couldn't help but laugh, Dong Xiaowan was pregnant, but the doctor decided that it was only two months. At the same time, there is also Zhu Yujiao, who is not so hypocritical.

"Phew, what the hell is the New Year's Day!"

Old Madam Yang was wearing an official uniform, sat majestically at the dinner table, and scolded in annoyance.

My father was not here, but filled up the silver ticket and went to the living room to play mahjong with my uncle and other relatives.

Dong Xiaowan said angrily: "It's just kicking!" ”

The old lady scolded: "If you kick it, you can't sit down." Don't move the tire. ”

Li Xiangjun lowered his head and didn't speak, but Chen Yuanyuan didn't care. whispered to the new concubine Du Hongying, and Zheng Jiaomei's wild girl ran out to set off fireworks.

"Okay, stop crying. Dad takes you to Grandpa to ask for New Year's money. ”

Yang Chao got up as he spoke, and ran to the living room with his daughter in his arms.

The Yang family is a little small.

It's still a house in the past, dozens of houses, it used to seem like space, but now it can't live at all, the concubines in the backyard have five rooms, and Yang Chao and his wife, they have to occupy six houses, most of the girls live in the front yard, but the guards at home can't live there.

The two houses next door have been bought, but they can't live in a thousand soldiers, and they have saved some money in recent years, Yang Chao plans to build a new house, and the location is under the Lion Rock, facing the Yangtze River.

"Go and kowtow to grandpa, kowtow to uncle!"

Put his daughter in front of the card table of the Yang family, and smiled and urged his daughter to beg for New Year's money, these old men were playing lively, and suddenly a girl with braids and a smiling and red face ran over, staring at the banknotes on their card table with flickering eyes, and then immediately knelt down and kowtowed.

"Happy New Year, Grandpa."

After saying that, he raised his head and blinked his eyes.

Her grandfather put down the cards in his hand, laughed twice, touched and took out a big red envelope, and gave it to the little girl.

Uncle also hurriedly took out the money, and the others were indispensable, to be honest, the purpose of their coming here to play cards may be to send money.

After taking the money, the little girl didn't care about these old men anymore, and immediately ran out, shouting "Aunt Zheng" in her mouth, her money would basically be coaxed away by Zheng Jiaomei, buy a lot of firecrackers, or snacks.

Keeping the New Year's Eve overnight, Yang Chao couldn't get up the next day, people are really lazy, lethargic, and greedy, and it's strange that they don't grow meat.

This situation made Yang Chao very emotional, this year can't be like this, Gentle Township is a hero's mound.

After the third year of junior high school, he immediately summoned an official to the Metropolitan Governor's Mansion to discuss the government affairs of the year.

Last year, Jiangnan's economy was not very sluggish, but in the second half of the year, it slowly stabilized, and Yang Chao has been careful not to toss, and finally after the summer and autumn grain, the tax revenue barely reached 25 million taels, 5 million less than the year before, and finally breathed a sigh of relief.

This year, Yang Chao did not dare to expand wildly, and he did not dare to issue more bonds, so as not to impact the market that had just stabilized.

"Let's issue 20 million taels of bonds this year. The annual interest rate is set at 10 points, which should be attractive to hold. ”

"Last year's customs revenue was very effective, 8 million taels, and this year's persistent efforts should be able to exceed 10 million taels."

Last year, if it had not been for the efforts of the customs, it would not have been possible to receive 2,500 taels of tax silver under the condition of the internal economic downturn, of which the customs tariff was 5.5 million taels, an increase of 10 percent compared with previous years, but the regular tariff increased by a large margin, from less than one million to more than 2 million, which is a remarkable achievement.

Changguan refers to the port tax of domestic trade, such as from Wusong Port to Quanzhou, from Guangzhou to Haizhou and other foreign trade, Daming has tens of thousands of miles of coastline, the economic center is mostly by the sea, through the sea transport is very convenient, if the development is good, the regular tariff should far exceed the sea tariff. Of course, if the domestic trade is subject to a low tax rate, it should be no problem to be on par with the customs tariff, so Yang Chao is expected to exceed 10 million.

Of course, so many tariffs were mainly due to the development of the shipping industry after the opening of the sea ban, but it was also due to Nassau, who introduced the Dutch method of managing the port to the Ming Dynasty. Up to 1,000 customs officers have been trained. Lots of credit.

However, Nassau agreed to Yang Chao's decision to run a university. But it was delayed for a year, and it should have been completed last year, but the Dutch were unable to find a qualified university professor, which made Yang Chao quite angry, but in view of the fact that they sent more than 30 craftsmen who cast cannons, not only introduced the latest European cannon style, but also innovated the method of casting cannons in Xinjiangkou, these craftsmen can also make muskets. A number of new muskets were introduced.

Ten cartographers were also sent, as well as a few accountants who knew mathematics. Yang Chao is most eager to bring in natural science scholars, but there is not even one.

Nassau explained the predicament of the East India Company, at this time, most of the Western scholars were well-born and well-fed, and they could not bear the hardships of ocean voyages, so those who had been to the East all the time, in addition to low-quality low-level sailors, only had firm faith. A fanatical priest who dedicated his life to God.

As a result, the East India Company was unable to recruit a sufficient number of scholars, and the Jesuits were willing to send a group of learned priests. However, Yang Chao named only pure scientists, not missionary priests, which made it difficult for the Dutch to do so.

Yang Chao had given Nassau an ultimatum to inform the East India Company that if Yang Chao could not see the scientists he wanted by the end of next year, he would cut off trade with the Dutch.

Yang Chao's ultimatum, Nassau did not dare to slack off, although the East India Company had captured more than 5 million taels of tariffs last year, 4 million, if it was placed in the West, this is the God of Wealth, and it will not be offended if killed, but in the Eastern world, the ruler really dares to play like this.

In the past two years, the Japanese have begun to play with quota trade, and the trade quota for the East India Company is one million taels of silver a year. Because the Zheng Group has taken more than 30 million taels of silver from the Japanese in the past five years, Japan has seen a silver crunch, and deflation has caused the economy to continue to slump for years. No matter how stupid the Japanese are, they know that it is caused by the outflow of silver, and the trade volume of the Zheng clan cannot be restricted, so they can only use knives against the Dutch.

With the example of Japan, the Dutch did not dare to risk against the Chinese, and Nassau assured that he would use his connections to invite some learned nobles to come and help form a university, but he said that it might not be the size of a Dutch university, but it could guarantee three subjects: astronomy and navigation, mathematical geometry, and mining and metallurgy.

Yang Chao could only agree to this and recognized this bottom line.

"$10 million in education spending is not deductible. Military spending is at least 30 million. If you want to launch a large-scale offensive, at least 40 million, and if you want to launch a long-term operation such as the Northern Expedition, at least 50 million taels. Therefore, our army is still not capable of carrying out a large-scale offensive this year. But it's okay to launch some attacks locally. Our goal is to attract Sun Kewang to compete with our army for territory in Hubei, so that he has no time for internal fighting. ”

Yang Chao's idea was that he would send troops to attack Hubei, so that Sun Kewang would definitely be forced to go on a northern expedition, so that he would not be able to start a civil war with Li Dingguo in the south. And Yang Chao didn't need to really fight Hubei, so that Sun Kewang could attack the Qing army in Hubei.

"This year, we must vigorously encourage production. Encourage silk weaving workshops in the Suzhou area. If necessary, the governor could still lend them ten million taels. Encourage large factories and recruit workshops with more than 100 workers. The governor personally sent a plaque to the past, giving him a fame, and he could see the official without worshipping! ”

Although Yang Chao has not been very interested in kneeling, but he has not rashly abolished the kneeling, this thing is a status symbol, since it has been played for thousands of years, it has become a privilege, and all power has value, so Yang Chao has always regarded the official worship as a kind of privilege decentralization, such as giving some famous squires this privilege, and bringing them closer to the centripetal force of the government.

It is not Yang Chao's goal to really be an enemy of the entire gentry class, but he has been doing things that infringe on the rights and interests of the gentry class, and the contradictions are naturally difficult to alleviate, and can only be slowly alleviated step by step, until these gentry classes are completely transformed into new classes, such as the merchant class and the industrial capital class, which will not be completely resolved.

In particular, Yang Chao encouraged the gentry in the countryside to raise silkworms and weave silkworms, and in the newspapers he called for the creation of a kind of good deed that wage workers were to feed the people, and vigorously encouraged these gentry to turn their silver savings into investment and develop large-scale handicraft workshops.

"Encourage the construction of roads and bridges, and all good people who spend more than 3,000 taels of silver will be given plaques and show their talents."

"The embankment from Suzhou to Songjiang should be completed this year. A new banknote was set up with a tax amount of 2 million taels. ”

Suzhou to Songjiang is connected by Wusong River, but no one has been maintained, and many sections of the river are inconvenient, either the embankment bursts badly, or the water flow is too shallow. Yang Chao gave Bai Lei 100,000 captive laborers, and asked him to dredge the canals around Suzhou since last year, especially the Wusong River. After the completion of the operation, the capacity can be increased by three times compared to the past. With the productivity of Suzhou and Songjiang, after this transportation road is dredged, it is just a piece of cake to collect two million taels of taxes a year.

"I heard that the gold mine in Zhaoyuan, Shandong Province, has a serious problem of illegal mining. This year, the entire mining area was banned, and the merchants who had been given 100,000 taels of silver were allowed to hire people to open the mines. 100,000 taels a year, no limit, should be able to collect about one million taels. ”

It's still money.

While consulting with officials, Yang Chao studied ways to expand financial resources.

Finally, the focus of this year's work is three: the first is to stabilize the economy, encourage production, and the goal is to continue the previous economic growth momentum, and this year's tax revenue will reach 35 million taels of silver; The second is the issue of education, no matter how poor you are, you can't be poor in education, although the expenditure is tight, but the education fund of 10 million taels a year cannot be less at all; The third is to improve transportation.

Yang Chao has always believed that the main responsibilities of the government are three, one is to protect the people, one is transportation, and the other is education, security protection is naturally a military issue, and transportation and education are the main responsibilities of the civilian government. Therefore he governed by these two articles.

"This Zhang Guo is good, notify him to come and see it."

After the governance plan was decided, Yang Chao took a look at the outstanding officials recommended by the civil officials.

This Wujiang County household official named Zhang Guo performed extremely eye-catching, and Yang Chao planned to meet him and hand over important work to him. (To be continued......)