In addition to the large amount of cash, a large amount of assets were seized, which can be slowly realized. Basically, a part of the assets will be auctioned every once in a while, so as to avoid too many assets in the one-time auction and not be able to sell for a price.

The competition between the royal consortium and other private businessmen is the same in terms of these assets, but if the royal consortium is determined to obtain a good asset, it does not need to care too much about the price, because the money is just left hand for right hand, but the procedure still has to be followed.

The value of these assets is at least 80 million yuan.

This time, Zhu Youxiao directly got hundreds of millions of financial revenues, how can Zhu Youxiao not be excited.

Suddenly there's a lot of money, and a lot of things can be started. The first thing Zhu Youxiao did was to set up a forestry bureau and allocate 5 million yuan to start planting trees in the northern provinces.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, there were both natural and man-made disasters. The reason why disasters in the north are sometimes difficult to contain is because the environment has been destroyed. A large number of mountains have been cut down and no one has planted trees, resulting in poor soil and water conservation, and bare mountains everywhere.

Therefore, in the northern provinces, vegetation restoration is also a feasible way to reduce disasters and strengthen resilience. In addition, afforestation can provide some social employment, so that ordinary people can have more jobs, and it is also a good expense item.

At the same time, compulsory education was also included in the plan, and the Royal Teachers College once again expanded the scale of advanced courses to train more Mongolian teachers.

The main purpose of the refresher course is to teach Mongolian teachers pinyin, Arabic numerals, and simple mathematics. However, it is estimated that it will take some years for compulsory education to be extended throughout the country. Even if compulsory education is to be implemented in the Beizhili area, it will take three to five years.

Then Zhu Youxiao invested another 20 million yuan in water conservancy management. Repairs to water conservancy facilities in the northern provinces began.

These things will be carried out by the Cabinet. However, the construction of the project will be undertaken by the Royal Infrastructure Company to avoid being embezzled by the local government, so as to create a tofu slag project. These water conservancy projects formulated by the central government will adopt a wage system instead of a forced labor system, and young people will be paid 30 yuan a day.

With an investment of 20 million yuan in water conservancy, water conservancy can be repaired in the major river basins of Shandong, Henan, Shaanxi, and Shanxi. And it can increase a lot of employment, and increase the size of the commodity market to a certain extent. It is also a good choice.

The remaining budget of 11 million yuan was invested in highway construction after consultation with the cabinet. Soon the cabinet came up with a tender for road construction.

This plan will include all the northern provinces, and will build a highway network with Beizhili as the center and connecting Shandong, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan, and Liaodong. Among them, the main road was built by the imperial court, and the branch line was built by private capital.

After the completion of these roads, the imperial court will be faster and more efficient in disaster relief and in suppressing rebellions. At the same time, it can make the goods of Beizhili sell well in the northern provinces and be more convenient to be transported to the sales location.

Therefore, the construction of highways is very necessary, in addition to the investment of the imperial court, the royal capital will also become the main force in the construction of highways in the north. plus private investment.

"It is expected that within the next five years, a complete road network will be formed in the northern provinces. Heavy carriages can be produced without hindrance. It is estimated that about 20 million yuan will be invested every year to achieve this goal. Shen Yu reported the plan to the emperor, "In addition to the capital investment of the imperial court in the first year, the next funds will be invested with private funds." ”

"Let's do it according to this plan!" Zhu Youxiao nodded and agreed to this plan, if you want to get rich, build a road first! With transportation, there is an opportunity for economic development.

The highway network of Beizhili is about to be perfected, and at this time, Beizhili's goods have a strong external market demand, and the road must be repaired.

"Your Majesty, the minister thinks that it is time to raise taxes in the provinces. The imperial court could set up checkpoints in various areas with heavy water and land traffic, and levy tolls for business travelers, but only the royal family could do so. Shen Yu suggested to Zhu Youxiao.

"This matter is too big, we need to be cautious, and then take it slowly!" Zhu Youxiao hesitated a little, but finally did not make a decision.

In the provinces, the toll of the goods is levied, which is a disguised tariff. At that time, the existing economic pattern of the Ming Dynasty will be directly divided, and it will easily cause a large number of people in Jiangnan to lose their jobs.

Zhu Youxiao wants to stabilize the north, and he also wants to stabilize the south.

The advantage of the southern provinces to the Ming Dynasty was that they were stable enough and had a relatively strong ability to resist disasters, even if there were popular uprisings and rebellions and could not shake the rule of the Ming Dynasty. However, the stability of the south is based on a certain commercial foundation, and at this time, the development of the commodity economy in the north has already caused a certain impact on the economy of the south, as can be seen from the recent miners' riots.

If tolls are now levied on a large scale in the southern provinces, it will be a serious problem if it causes unemployment. After all, the working class living in the cities will make trouble as soon as they don't have enough to eat, and it will be impossible for the imperial court to kill all the troublemakers in the southern provinces!

"I think it's better to start by sea first, improve the import and export tariffs first, and then make local adjustments." Zhu You said to Shen Xiao, "I plan to open the ports of the coastal provinces in the near future and completely lift the sea ban. ”

"It is indeed more prudent to build import and export tariffs first, so that the market division will have to expand the scale first." Shen Yan said, "In addition, the imperial court can immediately fully open up maritime trade in Beizhili, Liaodong and Shandong. ”

"This can be implemented immediately, and I want a clean and efficient city department." Zhu Youxiao admonished, Shen Xiao bowed and said, "The minister must do his best." ”

Soon after, the cabinet issued a policy of opening up maritime trade in Beizhili, Shandong, and Liaodong in an all-round way, and of course there was no big change.

Because in terms of foreign trade, at present, it is Korea and Japan, and Japan is still not in the open ranks, and only the merchant ships of the royal consortium can go to Japan for trade. North Korea's maritime trade was last year accessible to private merchant ships.

Taiwan belongs to the province of the Ming Dynasty, and the merchant ships of Beizhili can also go to this province, and Taiwan is still in the new policy system of Beizhili, as long as the goods from Taiwan arrive in Beizhili, as long as a certificate is issued when leaving the port, they can be exempted from tariffs when entering Beizhili.

Trade with Nanyang and other places has not yet begun.

However, there was soon good news from the shipyard that the Imperial Power under construction had finally been launched. Because of the use of new keel manufacturing technology, the keel can be directly spliced, and through the construction of the Imperial Power, we have accumulated experience. The Royal Shipyard has begun construction of a 1,500-ton merchant ship and is preparing to build a 2,000-ton merchant ship.

The most important thing is that the launch of the Imperial Power means that the Ming Dynasty has the most advanced sail warship. The disadvantage of this Westerner boat type is that the sailing comfort is too poor, and it is far less comfortable than the Chinese sailing boat type. But the use of soft sails means that the lifting sail is lighter, although the traditional Chinese boat type is very scientific, and the ship type of later generations is similar, but it is also a problem that it is too advanced, with the current material technology, the light hard sail is still impossible to obtain, although it can rely on tools to lift, but once damaged, it is quite inconvenient to repair.

The Royal Shipyard will begin to manufacture soft sail merchant ships, but it is not a comprehensive hard sail merchant ship, hard sail still has the characteristics of more economical and more comfortable, Daming coastal transport with hard sail merchant ships is obviously more convenient, and the sail damage during coastal transportation is also easy to replace, both ships can be manufactured and used.

At the same time, when transporting fragile goods such as porcelain and glass, it is also a hard-sail merchant ship that is more useful.

At the same time as the Imperial Power was launched, another fifteen thousand-ton warships had also been launched and delivered to the navy.

This means that the Ming Royal Navy already has twenty-one thousand-ton gunboats, as well as a 1,500-ton gunboat.

When Zhu Youxiao saw the shipyard's report, he was overjoyed that he had finally formed a navy, so he immediately ordered the Royal Trading Company to form a merchant fleet to trade in the South Seas.

With the navy, maritime trade can be unfolded.

Of course, what Zhu Youxiao wants is to snatch the Philippines and Malaysia from the Spaniards and the Dutch. It doesn't matter if they can't grab it for a while, they will hurt the Dutch and Spaniards first, so that they dare not harass the maritime trade of the Ming Dynasty.

At that time, the merchant ships of the Ming Dynasty can continue to go to the countries of the Indochina Peninsula and get the food that the Ming Dynasty needs most.

The most important significance of maritime trade is to obtain raw materials from overseas.

However, to Zhu Youxiao's surprise, after the Yangzhou salt merchants were confiscated, it actually caused financial problems in Jiangnan, because the salt merchants' capital was confiscated, many commercial activities were forced to be suspended, and soon a chain of financial turmoil was triggered in the Jiangnan area.

After discussing with the senior management of the Royal Bank, Yang Guorui applied to Zhu Youxiao to enter the Jiangnan market and provide loans for Jiangnan merchants to calm down the financial problems.

"Royal Bank now has the ability to expand to the Jiangnan region, and the scale of the financial market in the Jiangnan region is not comparable to that of the northern provinces. If the Royal Bank enters the provinces of Jiangnan, it is expected to receive a large amount of savings funds. Yang Guorui reported some of the financial situation in the Jiangnan area to the emperor, and the royal capital has long coveted the Jiangnan area.

"Jiangnan Capital is very hostile to our royal capital, shouting all day long that we are competing with the people for profit, if we enter Jiangnan at this time, will we be excluded?" Zhu You asked Yang Guorui.

"The financial turmoil in the Jiangnan area this time is a good time for the royal consortium to enter the Jiangnan area, and it happens that it will not be rejected by Jiangnan capital, and there will always be some businessmen who will take refuge in us." Yang Guorui said.

"In that case, let's open a bank in Jiangnan!" Zhu Youxiao nodded in agreement. (To be continued......)