Zhu Youzhen issued the Northern Expedition in front of millions of ordinary people in Nanjing.

It even declared war directly on the Manchus.

In addition, the Manchu envoys had died due to civil unrest.

It is a foregone conclusion that the Ming Dynasty will go on a northern expedition in October next year.

No one dares to criticize it anymore.

Otherwise, it will be disobeying the holy decree and disobeying the will of the people!

The political situation in the Ming Dynasty was quietly reversed.

From now on.

It will be the decree of the Ming Emperor that represents the will of the people, not the civil officials.

As for Zhu Youzhen's determination of whether the deadline for the Northern Expedition would be detrimental to the Northern Expedition strategy, the Manchus were able to prepare in advance.

Naturally, there is no need to worry about this.

First of all, not to mention that no matter how stupid the Manchu Qing is, they will not make some preparations to resist the Northern Expedition of the Ming Dynasty when they do not know whether the Ming Dynasty is on the Northern Expedition.

Just the comparison of the national strength of the Ming Dynasty and the Manchu Qing Dynasty today.

Whether the Manchus knew or did not know the duration of the Northern Expedition of the Ming Dynasty, they could not compete with the Ming Dynasty.

Daming is already a semi-industrialized country.

At this time, the Manchu Qing Dynasty was a regime that had just been reborn from a serf civilization to an agrarian civilization.

Even if the Manchu hero Dolgon is wise and eloquent, even if he is a figure of Zhuge Liang, it is difficult to turn the tide.

The Northern Expedition of the Ming Dynasty was like the Northern Expedition of the Southern Song Dynasty, and the key to success or failure was whether the domestic ruling forces could be twisted into a rope.

That is, it is still an internal problem.

Now, Zhu Youzhen has used the price of mobilizing the people at the bottom to forcibly oppress the civilian clique to compromise, and even forced him to die and resign, making the Northern Expedition a foregone conclusion!

And because of this, the cabinet and even the local government had to continue to cooperate with the military work of the Generalissimo's Office.

On the one hand, the first assistant of the cabinet, Gao Hongtu, presided over the salt tax reform.

On the one hand, Ruan Dayue, the deputy assistant of the cabinet and the secretary of the Ministry of War, temporarily dispatched and coordinated the world's money and grain on behalf of the secretary of the household department, and began to increase the capital investment in the Daming Ordnance Institute.

Gao Hongtu first ordered the Ministry of Officials to ban the salt transportation envoys and the officials who patrolled the salt imperial history, and these subordinate officials were quickly transferred to other places according to the assessment of the officials' plans.

Then, all the major salt farms were contracted to the major salt merchants who had been selected by Gao Hongtu in advance, and a state-owned salt company was established.

Gao Hongtu knew that he had made a big mistake in discussing peace and did not understand the meaning of His Majesty Zhu Youzhen, so he could not do his best in this commercial tax reform.

In order to balance his interests, he even took the initiative to cede his interests and allowed major salt merchants to take shares in the state-owned salt industry branches, which made the opposition of salt merchants to the salt tax reform much smaller.

At the same time, Gao Hongtu also summoned more than a dozen salt merchants, and after March 1, the national salt price fell by 70% in a month!

After that, it continued to fall to the same price as rice.

But because of this, Gao Hongtu's actions were bombarded by a large number of princes, nobles and bureaucrats, after all, he did so to cause these large smugglers to suffer huge losses in their profits from illicit salt.

Of course, these powerful people who can only sell illicit salt behind their backs can only instruct the official to find other reasons to accuse Gao Hongtu.

Therefore, the speech official is the most annoying, and at any time he will be used as a gun by a certain power group, and sometimes some speech officials even have contradictory views in the last two performances.

This time.

Zhu Youzhen naturally directly and blatantly helped Gao Hongtu, directly demoted these nonsense officials to remote areas, and even directly reduced them to ordinary people and exiled them for 3,000 miles, working hard to increase the number of yeoman farmers.

Originally, the biggest taboo of the speech official was not whether the concept was right or wrong, but whether he used someone as a gun.

Now these officials who have made guns for the powerful naturally have no need to stay.

In addition, Zhu Youzhen also agreed with Gao Hongtu to reorganize the salt army and transfer a large number of guards to the salt administration department and the salt administration sub-bureaus of various theaters to serve as salt soldiers, responsible for maintaining order in the salt industry.

These demobilized officers and soldiers of the Guards were all from the regular army, and they made great efforts to reform the salt soldiers, and after that, the efforts to crack down on illegal salt also increased, and the salt industry of the Ming Dynasty was further rectified.

After the sharp drop in salt prices, the most obvious benefit was the improvement of the quality of life of the people, and at the same time, the political corruption brought about by the huge profits of the salt industry was curbed, and good political preparations were made before the Northern Expedition.

And at this time.

Ruan Dayue's side led the left servant of the household department Qu Shiyun to change the style of Liu Wanchun who only made money and did not throw money during the period when he was in charge of the household department, and continued to invest in the Daming Ordnance Institute, expanding the steel plant, the gun factory and the gun factory, and the highest project fund reached the level of 10 million silver dollars!

Even for this reason, Ruan Dayue set up a special Northern Expedition treasury, began to boldly borrow from the Daming Central Bank to use a large amount of money to collect grain before the autumn grain collection, began to transport grain to various grain depots in Jiangbei half a year in advance, and also issued the military expenses of various armies in advance, and the purchase of various equipment was also allocated to the Generalissimo's Office, and directly added orders to the Daming Ordnance Institute.

After receiving a large number of orders and expanding funds, the Daming Ordnance Institute continued to expand the number of migrant workers, and even raised the minimum salary to stimulate the enthusiasm of craftsmen.

All kinds of scientific research and weapon research and development in the Ming Dynasty have once again entered the era of the fast lane under the stimulation of a large amount of funds.

In the first half of the twenty-second year of Chongzhen before the start of the Northern Expedition.

The economy of the entire Ming Dynasty suddenly ran rapidly as if it had gone crazy, and the money in the treasury flowed out like water, and then flowed in from the Central Bank of the Ming Dynasty.

The central bank of the Ming Dynasty had to continue to print silver dollars, and directly gave birth to large-denomination steel banknotes.

Because of the large occupation of land by Huangzhuang, the land has been highly concentrated in the hands of most of the gentry after hundreds of years, and the price of salt has decreased, so the common people can only spend the money obtained after hard work in other aspects, which promotes the rapid development of various industries in the Ming Dynasty, and the tax and silver income rises like a geometric number.

But because of the crazy printing of money by the Central Bank of the Ming Dynasty, and the people's desire to pursue life after the quality of life has improved, it makes the people feel that the money is still not enough to spend, although they have earned a lot of money.

Coupled with the psychology of comparison brought about by social development, the people work harder to earn money.

In metropolises like Nanjing and Songjiang, more and more people from other places come here to work hard, and major newspapers and periodicals are particularly fond of spreading success stories of overnight riches, further stimulating young people to leave their hometowns and gather in these places.

After the central court spent a lot of money and liberated the productive forces, it stimulated commerce to become more and more prosperous, which also directly led to the emergence of predatory merchant groups.

The most representative here are Huangzhuang and Zheng Group.

Through the occupation of a large amount of land and minerals in China, Huangzhuang organized armed forces to maintain production order at home, contracted the Northern Expedition project abroad, and even caravans began to develop wasteland in Jiaozhi, Burma and other places to produce grain and sell it back to China.

The Zheng group also used its armed forces to develop production on Dongfan Island, plundered raw materials overseas, shipped them back to China for sale, and obtained huge profits, and even fought with Western colonists for a mineral and land.

Of course, there are not only two business groups of Huangzhuang and Zheng Group.

The preparations for the Northern Expedition, the demand for food and industrial raw materials brought about by the previous wars, and the economic needs brought about by the improvement of the people's living standards all prompted the emergence of various types of merchant groups.

Of course, it is also related to the opening of the sea ban by the Ming Dynasty, the establishment of commercial ports, and the encouragement of going to sea, so that these merchants have the opportunity to form a merchant group to plunder the means of production overseas to meet the needs of the domestic market.

(End of chapter)