In the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, there was a large-scale change in the senior magistrates of the Ming Dynasty and Guangzhou, and now it is Shen Youlong who is the governor of Liangguang, and the prefect of Qiongzhou has been replaced by Shen Tingyang.

Shen Youlong was transferred from the governor of Fujian, and he was upright, honest and honest, so there was nothing to say. Shen Tingyang's promotion from the post of Langzhong of the Household Department in Beijing to the prefect of Qiongzhou Military Preparation Province is a personnel arrangement that runs counter to the original historical appearance.

Zhao Youheng, who had been demoted to Qiongzhou for several years, after being reinstated a few years ago, went through the positions of the right governor of the Nanjing Metropolitan Procuratorate and the left senator of the Fujian Buzheng Division, and now he has also been transferred to Liangguang to serve as the governor of Guangdong and the imperial history of the right capital, and he was ordered to supervise the soldiers, horses, money, grain, and ordnance of Liangguang. The governors of the two Cantons, who usually served as governors of Guangdong, also saw a rare separation.

Such an intriguing big move is because at the beginning of last year, when Zhang Jingxin, the previous governor of Liangguang, was about to step down, there was a "Baihuaju case" that shook Liangguang.

At that time, the "passer-by" and some officials of the Qiongzhou prefect happened to visit Wèn, and a wave of officials were hangover in a restaurant called Baihuaju in Qiongshan County, and a fire broke out in Baihuaju in the middle of the night. The raging fire affected many residential shops around Baihuaju, and many Qiongzhou officials, including the Qiongzhou prefect and the general judge, who moved in from other places, together with the Guangdong Provincial Inspector Yushi, were all killed in the fire.

Such a bizarre case of collective murder of officials once attracted the attention of Emperor Chongzhen, and Qiongzhou, which has long been far away from the emperor and rarely has high-level concerns, has achieved economic development results over the years that Chongzhen was shocked to look at.

After some understanding, it was found that the rice grain transferred to Guangdong, Fujian and Zhejiang provinces through Qiongzhou every year was as high as 700,000 stones. Among them, the amount that entered Guangzhou was 600,000 stones, and the "miscellaneous silver" handed over to the Guangdong Qingli Division of the Ministry of Household in the past few years was also tens of thousands of taels.

After a closer investigation, Xiong Wencan patted his chest and promised that "with the homeless people, the difficulties of the refugees can be solved, and the profits of millions of rice and grain can also be expected" almost came true.

Although they are all resold and circulated by grain merchants, it is a miracle that such a large amount of rice grain can be activated in Qiongzhou, a remote place where birds do not!

It then extends to the three southeastern provinces, Fujian, Zhejiang, Guangdong, and even the entire Nanyang. The maritime grain trade has been very active in recent years. At one time, some of the grain trade also reached Shandong. The grain price in the southeast coastal state capital is stable, although disasters and famines also occur from time to time, but it is the place with the least civil unrest in the Ming Dynasty, which is many times better than ten years ago. also supported Chongzhen's precarious imperial court revenue.

Recalls many years ago when Xiong Wencan was in charge of Liangguang. Inexplicably, there will always be an extra tens of thousands of taels of silver every year. Chongzhen, who was already too poor to be caught, really began to examine the important Cheng dù of Liangguang and Qiongzhou to the Ming Dynasty.

The traditional Jiangnan Canal has become more and more inadequate, the river has been lost and dredged for a long time, and the grain from the south of the Yangtze River has gone north. The local area has to eat more and more cards along the way, and the imperial court has spent more and more on the transportation of rice year by year, but the rice grain transported to the north is getting less and less. Once a military disaster is encountered, the workers and people are scattered, and the Cao Yun will be even more precarious. Since the beginning of the Apocalypse, the natural disasters and civil disturbances in Suhuai and Shandong have not stopped, and it is not a matter of time or twice that Caoyun has been cut off.

Shen Tingyang, the former Hubu Langzhong, who had high hopes for Emperor Chongzhen, was one of the few enlightened officials who advocated "sea transportation" at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and once presented the "Book of Shipping" and "Maritime Map" to Chongzhen. Verbal propaganda alone is not enough to prove that Shen Tingyang, under the suspicious approval of General Chongzhen, presided over the sea transportation of grain to the Ningyuan Theater in Liaodong in Dengzhou, Shandong, and the result was extremely obvious, not only with a short photoperiod, but also with very little cost.

Chongzhen said happily afterwards: "The officials are as good as Shen Tingyang, how difficult is it to govern the world!" It can be seen how high Chongzhen's expectations for Shen Tingyang are. Although it failed to change the overall situation in the north, the Battle of Songshan still ended in "falling outside the Guan", but the matter of shipping grain advocated by Shen Tingyang and practiced made Chongzhen remember it in his heart.

Qiongzhou introduced displaced people, and the results of reclamation were remarkable, which proved that the local grain production potential was huge, and the rice and grain trade between the two Guangxi and Nanyang with Qiongzhou as the hub was also very prosperous. The only trouble is how to realize the large-scale project of transporting grain from the south to the north by sea, after all, from Liangguang to Shandong, it is far more than a short distance from Dengzhou in Shandong to Ningyuan.

Emperor Chongzhen made a desperate attempt to appoint Shen Tingyang as the military preparation province of Qiongzhou and the prefect of Qiongzhou, hoping that the other party could once again create a miracle of shipping rice and grain, and with the idea of getting more money and grain from Liangguang and Nanyang in the future. In the past, whoever took office in Qiongzhou was a signal of an abandoned son, but now the meaning is completely different.

This kind of appointment, which completely disrupted the relationship between the local military and political commands, appeared on a large scale in the two periods of the late Ming Dynasty and Chongzhen, and the post of military preparation during the Chongzhen period, which can be called "golden oil", was particularly prominent. In many cases, there is no specific grade restriction, and the power can be high or low, dispensable, but once there is an imperial decree of the emperor, it can be grasped in a messy manner in the local military and civilian internal affairs, judicial, taxation, and political chaos, which can be regarded as one of the strange characteristics of the increasingly chaotic state and local management in the late Ming Dynasty.

As for Zhao Youheng, the prosperity of Qiongzhou at the beginning started from him. Zhao Youheng has many years of experience in Qiongzhou, and was praised by Xiong Wencan as "familiar with the civil affairs of the southeast, familiar with Nanyang commercial affairs", and his reputation in Nanjing and Fujian is also very good.

More importantly, once the two Guangxi are included in the imperial court's south-to-north grain transportation strategy, the pressure on coastal defense will be even greater, and with the many rotten guards on the border of Guangdong, they can't afford it at all, and it is absolutely what Chongzhen does not want to see to raise another wave of border and sea tyrants like Zheng Zhilong and Yan Sihai.

As for the episode a few years ago of "Nanyang Miyi begging for tribute and falling into trouble on an isolated island in the outer ocean", both Emperor Chongzhen himself and the cabinet ministers at that time were all dazed by the massive amount of arms sent to the door.

It is not enough to say that Hong Kong Island was leased out of a daze, but in the face of huge maritime trade interests and military pressure from the Manchus, the cabinet rarely "worked together". For the Donglin Party in the south of the Yangtze River, there is already a precedent for Macao. It is not necessary to have another Hong Kong that can bring you greater benefits, not to mention that the lease period is only 10 years, and you are not afraid of losing the tail.

Emperor Chongzhen vaguely acquiesced in the rental intention of the island where birds don't "in principle", and even revealed that he couldn't wait. Zhang Jingxin, who was the governor of Liangguang at the time, successfully "speculated on the holy will" and handled the matter, which was a rare "win-win" political activity for the center of the Ming court, which was a strong party dispute.

Therefore, Zhao Youheng's duty is not only to reorganize the coastal military towns in Guangdong, but also to imply the willingness to introduce more Taixi guns from Nanyang for the imperial court.

Such a combination of "two Shen and one Zhao" can be regarded as Chongzhen's "wisest" decision in the midst of internal and external troubles, but what the final result is, probably Chongzhen himself also sweated. And he wouldn't have thought that this Ming Dynasty would only have half a life left to survive.

……

March 14, 1642. Thursday, February 14, the fifteenth year of Chongzhen in the Ming Empire.

Xiong Wencan, the former "Optimus of the Southeast", still failed to escape his own fate after being transferred to the prime minister of several inland provinces. Xiong Wencan's set of wrists on the southeast coast. When you get to the mainland, it obviously doesn't work. Overly cautious or gentle attitude towards the peasant army. In the end, Zhang Xianzhong and his ilk tossed and grew. Xiong Wencan was caught by Chongzhen the year before last, captured and abandoned the city, and died in disrepute.

Xiong Wencan is hanging. However, some of the influence he had left over the years in the southeastern provinces had not dissipated and was tacitly inherited by his successors. Qiongzhou Mansion in Guangdong Province of the Ming Dynasty benefited from Xiong Wencan's "Please Settle Qiongtun Reclamation to Solve Liao Affairs" many years ago.

Under the procrastination and obstruction of the local officials in various provinces, Qiongzhou was still better than having no land in six or seven years, and tens of thousands of people were moved from the hard-hit areas of Fujian, Zhejiang, Huguang, Yunnan, and Guizhou, and the intensity of bringing in the displaced people was not as strong as the small actions of the local gentry and big merchants in Qiongzhou.

Not counting Shengli, the population under the rule of Qiongzhou Mansion has quietly exceeded 400,000, especially in Qiongzhou City (Qiongshan County), where the population of residents in the city exceeds 100,000. It's just that Qiongzhou's local finances are lacking on the surface, and the mottled city walls still maintain the old state of dying.

The farmland outside the city was sown as early as last month, and the rice seedlings that emerged from the acres were verdant and verdant, and the seedlings would be planted in another half a month. Further afield, on a large plain or hill fenced by fences and ditches, there are dense and neat fields of sugar cane, cotton fields, coconut groves and other cash crops that can hardly be seen at a glance. Some of last year's autumn and winter crops are already being harvested, and wagons of all sizes are heading towards the farms, most of which are potatoes that have only been imported from Huamei in recent years.

The situation in Qiongzhou City is even more different, the once dry and bleak streets do not know when they have become extremely prosperous and lively. A large number of newly built or renovated shops or pavilions in recent years are lined up one after another, tiled restaurants are lined up, some shops and warehouses are open on the street to sell, and the figures of wealthy merchants and people abound. There was an endless stream of trucks coming into the city from the wharf or other directions, and the common people were ruddy in comparison, and they seemed to be living a decent life.

"Look, it's Lord Zhao, it's really Lord Zhao! Lord Zhao has returned to Qiongzhou! ”

A team of soldiers and horses entered the city from the direction of the wharf, and the residents of Qiongshan County on the street recognized at a glance the Ming official who was riding a horse. Whether it is a vegetable vendor or a shop owner on the street, they are all in a hurry and enthusiastically serving tea and water, and they are crowded to the side of the line inside and out.

"You fellow villagers have been absent for a long time, and this official has taken up a new position, and I came to Qiongzhou to visit Lord Shen this time."

Zhao Youheng is over 50 years old, and he is quite popular as an official, and now he is famous in several southeastern provinces, and he is also the governor of Guangdong. As the old parent official of Qiongzhou, as long as Zhao Youheng comes forward, the people of Qiongzhou are extremely obedient to save face.

Zhao Youheng kept bowing his hand to the people of Qiongzhou who were around him, thinking that he was still firmly remembered by the people of Qiongzhou after a few years of parting, and his heart was also warm. To be an official to do this part, let alone whether you are rich or not, this good reputation is not something that ordinary people can get.

"It turns out that Lord Zhao has been promoted, governor, it's good now!"

The people looked at the old parent official with anticipation, and at the same time threw out piles of praises without hesitation, knowing that their days were going to go to a higher level from today, and they let out heartfelt shouts one by one.

As for the former Qiongzhou prefect and Guangdong Provincial Superintendent of the Imperial History who died inexplicably and tragically in Baihuaju Restaurant at the beginning of last year, the simple people of Qiongzhou felt that it was a day in the dark, and who called that passerby A forced the local people to destroy most of the cotton fields and sugarcane fields after taking office. Switching to rice is retribution!

Shen Tingyang, the new prefect of Qiongzhou, who had only been in office for a year, was much more enlightened, on the one hand, he conformed to the people's sentiments and allowed the local people to farm on their own, and on the other hand, he suggested to Shen Youlong, the governor of Liangguang, that he continue to increase the measures to introduce displaced people to reclaim the wasteland in Qiongzhou, and even encouraged the wealthy merchants of Qiongzhou to build more sea ships and vigorously circulate rice in the South Sea, so as to realize the promise to Emperor Chongzhen that "within five years, bring millions of stone rice and grain to the sea and transport it to the north to solve the difficulty of food and clothing in the north".

The rice and grain trade on the southeast coast was essentially a drop in the bucket for the entire Ming Empire. But this did not prevent Shen Tingyang from having a dream of "northern grain on the sea". It can also be regarded as one of the few eye-opening moves in the twilight of the Ming Empire.

……

An hour later, Shen Tingyang, the prefect of Qiongzhou, entertained Zhao Youheng's family banquet ended, and the two chatted and walked in the backyard of the prefect's yamen, pitying each other and being full of ambition at the same time.

"The rocks and flowers in this backyard. It is still the work of Lord Futai back then. Today, the bluestone bamboo fence is still verdant. But I'm getting old. Shen Tingyang, who was a few years younger than Zhao Youheng, pinched his short beard and sighed as he walked.

"Hehe, Lord Bingxian and Zhao are under the same order. Acting Qiongzhou's new policy, it is the time when the emperor's grace is magnificent, how can he envy the flowers, plants, stones and trees in the backyard? After returning to Jun'en in front of Qiongya Daxing and the palace, it is too late to send love to the landscape! ”

After Zhao Youheng and Shen Tingyang glanced at each other, both of them laughed, and they both looked like they had a heart.

After the compliment, Zhao Youheng turned into a tree-lined path, and suddenly lowered his voice: "Lord Shen, last year's 'Baihuaju' case, do you have eyebrows?" ”

Seeing that Zhao Youheng asked about the unsolved case coldly, Shen Tingyang's hand pinching his beard was also stunned, and it took a long time before he slowly shook his head: "It's not a secret, the lower officials have checked the files all over the place, and they all refer to dry weather and accidents." That night, the 'Hundred Flowers House' and several surrounding households were scorched and rubble, and no one was spared, even if there was something strange, there was no way to verify. ”

After Zhao Youheng listened, his brows became tighter and tighter, as if he had thought of a certain direction.

"Lord Futai has asked about this, have you heard anything else?" Shen Tingyang is also an understanding person, and when he saw Zhao Youheng's expression, he immediately felt that the other party had served as the prefect of Qiongzhou for a long time, and he must have known something about some unspeakable things in the local area.

"Dozens of court officials are in trouble, and I can't bear to think about it...... By the way, Lord Shen, Zhao has been away from Qiongzhou for many years, how is the civil industry in Qiongzhou now? Zhao Youheng's expression returned to normal, and he turned the topic to the local people's livelihood economy.

"Hehe, before coming to Qiong, the lower officials were still wondering why the saint would choose Qiongzhou to carry out the new policy of agricultural reclamation and shipping. It's only been a year since I got here, and the lower officials realized that Lord Futai had left a good place back then! As soon as he talked about the recent situation in Qiongzhou, Shen Tingyang's eyebrows fluttered, "That Nanyang rice seed is really a treasure, two crops a year, two or three years to plant bean seeds for one season, coupled with the miraculous effect of Nanyang mud fertilizer (Huamei chemical fertilizer), there is no worry about abandoning and fallowing, and one acre of land can harvest more than four or five stones of rice a year!" Nowadays, the counties of Qiongdi have relocated and reclaimed the displaced people, and there are 700,000 mu of newly planted paddy fields, and more than 150,000 stones of rice and grain are taxed! There are also grain merchants in Fujian and Guangdong who traffic surplus grain to the three southeastern provinces and circulate all kinds of goods. Although the commercial tax is short, the silver tax is also collected 10,000 taels, which can be called a huge profit. The people have no worries about food and clothing, and every family has stockpiled food, and there is still room for other livelihoods. There are also local gentry who jointly build private workshops and mines, and there are all kinds of things, and the tax is increased by more than 10,000 taels......"

The two sat down at the stone table, and after Shen Tingyang sighed with joy for a while, he seemed to have some unspeakable secrets, and it took a long time to point the table with his hand, and gradually revealed his embarrassment: "In the land of Qiongzhou, the annual tax on money and grain is comparable to that of the Jiangnan Mansion, which is quite gratifying, and the saint also has some praise for the lower officials." However, the squires and the common people did not like farming, and even more so than in the south of the Yangtze River...... Xia Guan also knew that the silver price of agricultural products such as sugarcane fields, cotton fields, coconut palms, and gum trees (rubber trees) was higher, and they could be compared with mulberry hemp in the south of the Yangtze River......

In addition, it is said that the imperial court and government have migrated to various places to settle down and reclaim the famine, but the local gentry have formed associations to compete for the employment of people's labor, and have annexed mountains and forests, bought mountains, and purchased private mines and mines, and the people's power in Zhuzhou and county has already accounted for seven or eight out of ten, but the rice fields are sparse and numerous. In the name of "working together" to boost people's livelihood. The homeless people either became wealthy families to work, or had to find another remote and barren land to reclaim. ”

"Qiongzhou implements a new policy of recovering famine, collects displaced households, and reclaims for many years, if there are millions of acres of rice fields, then the southeast is determined. If there is cheap rice and grain introduced by Nanyang merchants, and it is transported from the sea to the north, how can it be more than a million stones? However, the people's sentiment was turbulent, and the squires and people were reluctant to change rice and wheat. If the course changes, the lower officials are afraid of civil unrest. In this way, it is really difficult to force it, is Lord Futai willing to solve the situation for the lower officials? ”

After speaking, Shen Tingyang stood up and bowed deeply at Zhao Youheng. The implication is that the agriculture of the local people in Qiongzhou is what Zhao Youheng was "used to" back then. I am afraid that the mysterious death of the prefect of Qiongzhou is also related to the fact that someone ordered the destruction of sugar cane fields and cotton fields at that time.

"This ...... Why did Lord Shen say this? It is common for the local squires in Qiongzhou to live and choose a job. Enforce the policy of millions of rice fields. It can only be deposited in the warehouse. Difficult to circulate. If it is lost by land, I am afraid that it will cost 19 percent halfway, but the gain outweighs the loss, and the land and people of Qiongzhou will be wasted, and it will not benefit the people. At the moment, there is a lot of waste to be done. The beginning of the New Deal. How can the shipping of rice and grain be achieved overnight? ”

Shen Tingyang invited himself to Qiongzhou to narrate. I didn't expect to find this direction and set myself a set. Zhao Youheng was suddenly unhappy, and his tone cooled slightly.

"Xiaguan is deeply favored by the emperor and guards Qiongya. Naturally, the people's business comes first. However, it is very difficult to use the country in the north, and the price of old rice in Qiongzhou is cheap, hey, ......" Shen Tingyang said as he spoke, and the nerd became angry, and his eyes were red on the spot.

"As far as Benfu has seen in recent years, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, and even Huguang are the land of fish and rice, but the land is becoming more and more merged. The imperial court was the imperial captives and the Liukou, and the military was increased every year. Occasionally, the wind and rain are smooth, and it is difficult to make a living. The fashion and misery of the harvest are a wonder of the world. The people of Jiangnan all abandoned rice and switched to planting mulberry, hemp, cotton and other things, making a profit, and still being able to settle down for a year and a half. ”

"The difficulty of transporting rice and grain in the south of the Yangtze River and the grain shortage in the north, how can it be regarded as the fault of one government and one state? Lord Shen was ordered to implement a new policy for agricultural reclamation and shipping in Qiongzhou, isn't it the way to find a solution? If the imperial court really has a million stone voyages to carry it, and the merchants have no cheap hoarding and selling, the people in Jiangnan can profit from grain, and they will naturally switch to planting rice and wheat. As the governor of Guangdong, Zhao supervises money and grain, so he and Lord Shen are naturally bent on walking together, but if you want to hurry, you can't reach it......"

A stone of Qiongzhou or Nanyang rice, just transported to Fuzhou to sell at will, can earn a net profit of two yuan, the price of rice from Nanyang overseas is even cheaper than that of Qiongzhou. However, compared with other goods, the profits are much less, not to mention that most of the time, rich grain merchants in various places deliberately hoard and reluctant to sell.

For Qiongzhou, whether it is a maritime merchant or a common people, rice is purely a table industry and a grain payment, and the daily livelihood is inseparable from those Nanyang cash crops that seem to be impossible to eat or drink. If the entire Qiongzhou government forcibly promotes large-scale rice cultivation, in addition to continuing to lower local grain prices and feeding those wealthy grain merchants who cannot pay a few taels of taxes, the people's lives will not be as good as before, and not only will it not play a role in solving the grain crisis in the north, but it may also lead to civil unrest.

At that time, even if the government forces were used to force the grain merchants and sea ships in Guangzhou and Qiongzhou to contribute, the annual transportation volume would only be hundreds of thousands of stones, and they could only be transported to the nearest Guangzhou, Chaozhou, Zhangzhou, Quanzhou and other places for a short distance.

Shen Tingyang slowly thought about Zhao Youheng's words, and also felt that it made sense. The crux of Qiongzhou's abundant two-season rice production and difficulty in transporting it north is not the fault of the local people, let alone the problem that can be solved by persuading many grain merchants to engage in long-distance shipping, but the maritime trade pattern of the entire Jiangnan and Lingnan and the livelihood of the people. Shen Tingyang was also secretly ashamed of his momentary excitement.

……

After saying goodbye to Shen Tingyang, Zhao Youheng took advantage of the fact that it was still dark and planned to go directly to the Wang family in Ding'an County, which was the wife of his brother-in-law Liu Yaoyu, and it was the place with the strongest local power and the closest ties between officials and businessmen in Qiongzhou. If you want to understand the situation of the whole Qiongzhou or seek the support of the gentry in Qiongzhou, it is almost enough to go to Ding'an County.

In Zhao Youheng's eyes, Shen Tingyang is a good official and has positive ambitions, but he is a typical outsider. Under the helpless situation of the imperial court's current "order does not reach the county and township", it is even more difficult for Shen Tingyang to sort out a "sea road of money and grain" for the emperor within a few years.

Zhao Youheng knew that the other party had a commitment to Emperor Chongzhen in his heart, but he had lived in Jiangnan for a long time, and his previous views had already changed, and he was well aware of the current situation and bottleneck of rice grain circulation in the north and south of the Ming Dynasty, and he had a peculiar feeling for the hard-won development achievements of Qiongzhou in the past ten years.

In the past, when he was transferred out of Qiongzhou, the local gentry who were not greedy almost destroyed the Nanhai business in Qiongzhou, and Zhao Youheng was also lost for a long time in his heart, feeling sorry for his wife and brother who worked hard in Qiongzhou. Now that he has returned to Liangguang and is in a position of power, he has made up his mind not to let people mess with the South China Sea business again.

Zhao Youheng can be regarded as having a deep understanding and influence of the Qiongzhou place, coupled with his current status, presumably those local gentry who think about taking advantage of the Nanyang trade all day long and regard the new policy of Qiongzhou as their own cornucopia will also be more restrained.

More crucially, Zhao Youheng must understand the relationship between "Miyi" and his wife and brother Liu Yaoyu and the gentry of Qiongzhou, as well as the development of Qiongzhou's local business, and whether it will have a more unpredictable impact on Qiongzhou's new money and grain policy, which is what he is most worried about as the governor of Guangdong. (To be continued......)