In August of the first year of Hongxi, Zhu Gaoxu transferred a large number of Beijing troops to leave the Beijing Division, and the population of all the provinces around the Beijing Division was greatly reduced, and the pressure on the original Cao Yun was also reduced a lot, but in October, Xia Yuanji, the head of the household, came to the door.

"Your Majesty wants to build a so-called military academy in the big school field, and now you have just taken a break to recuperate for more than half a year, and you want to move troops again? I really don't have any money. "Xia Yuanji came to complain.

After the emperor ascended the throne, it was less than a year, his mind was on the military, and the people's livelihood and economy did not seem to have started, so of course he was anxious.

But Zhu Gaoxu was also in a hurry, because there were too many things to do, so he chose to plunder abroad first to nourish the country.

In the future, the domestic economy can develop slowly, and if a war starts, the economy will run faster.

"Don't worry, sit, sit, come, serve tea." Zhu Gaoxu laughed, asked the eunuch to serve tea, and said: "I am summoning Liu Jun of the military department and Lu Zhen of the etiquette department, just wait." ”

Xia Yuanji was not polite, and sat on the side, sulking.

However, he is still very comfortable in his heart, the emperor is approachable, if the six books are played in private, he can come directly to the Dongnuan Pavilion to find the emperor after the next court, and after the emperor goes down, he will generally stay in the Dongnuan Pavilion for an hour to deal with official business.

This is something that Emperor Yongle and Emperor Jianwen have not done before, and if you want to see the emperor alone, you need to play first, and then get the emperor to summon you.

"How much food does the household department have now?" Zhu Gaoxu asked.

"More than one million taels of silver, more than three million stones, are not enough to fight a battle." Natsuhara Yoshimichi.

This is the summer grain tax that has just been levied and a small part of the autumn grain.

Zhu Gaoxu made a lot of money from Beiping, but he gave a lot of rewards to the soldiers and generals, not to mention the double salary every month, and the court expenses were extremely large.

"Xia Butang, don't worry, my Daming will only get richer and richer, and there will be more and more food."

Xia Yuanji looked incredulous.

"In a few days, the southern fleet should come over." Zhu Gaoxu said: "I opened the sea in Fujian and collected ship tax, Xia Butang guess how much has been collected from January to October this year?" This money is useless, and it was transported here just for Xia Butang. ”

“。。” Xia Yuanji looked at the emperor and cautiously stretched out a finger: "Five hundred thousand taels?" ”

He had already guessed high.

Unexpectedly, the emperor's face immediately darkened, do you look down on me Zhu Zhilong?

This will be a little worse than Zheng Zhilong's time, but after Zhu Gaoxu ascended the throne, he immediately restarted the Municipal Ship Division in Dengzhou, Shandong, Ningbo, Zhejiang, and Taicang, Jiangnan.

Among these three places, Ningbo and Taicang were originally done by the Ming court, and then they were closed, Ningbo was opened again in the middle of Yongle, and after Zhu Gaoxu restarted, Dengzhou was added, and he was also entangled between Tianjin and Dengzhou at that time, but Tianjin Port is still small now, and there is no expansion, and finally Dengzhou was chosen.

As soon as these three places were opened, together with Fujian and Guangdong, the sea trade that he originally opened immediately prospered.

In particular, the transaction between Dongben and Goryeo here is at least ten times stronger than that of Yongle.

Zhu Gaoxu said at this time: "No, it should be from January to September last year, and the silver money transported this time will only be counted as September." ”

"The imperial court collected a total of five million taels of silver (of course, three-fifths of which were treasure money)."

But Zhu Gaoxu does not have time for monetary reform now, and must first stabilize the domestic economy and production.

"Ahh At this time, Xia Yuanji was shocked.

Compared with Lao Zheng, it was still a little worse, Zhu Gaoxu said secretly.

It is said that Lao Zheng has tens of millions a year.

But the environment is different now, and he's just getting started.

With the opening of the sea ban, more businessmen will inevitably turn their attention to sea trade in the future.

Zhu Gaoxu has ordered a new shipyard, and the people can buy big ships from the imperial shipyard, which has not yet started to be built, and has received many orders, which can make a lot of money.

"This is still just the beginning, I have already discussed with the Ministry of Industry Shangshu, and then in Suzhou, Wenzhou, Dengzhou, Tianjin, Huai'an, build five large shipyards, a few years later, can be sold to the outside world."

"Sell more than 2,000 large ships to the people."

"Let's talk to Xia Butang like this, you can earn at least a thousand taels for every ship you sell."

"If there are more private merchant ships, there will be more maritime merchants, and we will collect more taxes."

"In addition, the private sector is allowed to set up ships that make less than 1,000 materials, and I can conclude that in ten years, there will be at least ten times more private ships running sea trade than now."

"Xia Butang, think about it, how much tax can be collected by then?"

When Xia Yuanji listened, he felt that something was flowing at the corner of his mouth, and when he reached out and touched it, it turned out to be saliva, and he suddenly looked embarrassed.

Huai'an's Qingjiang Shipbuilding University was already under construction in Yongle, but it was stopped because Zhu Gaochu raised troops, and it was immediately restarted after Zhu Gaochu ascended the throne.

The original history will be completed next year, and this Qingjiang shipyard will have more than 3,000 craftsmen at that time, with an annual output of 500 ships.

In addition, the Linqing Shipyard, which was originally built next year, was prepared by the Ministry of Industry before, also because it was suspended after Zhu Gaoxu raised troops.

Historically, the Linqing Shipyard mainly built shallow-water ships for bad transportation.

Zhu Gaoxu didn't care about it for the time being, and first wanted sea trade, because he grabbed a lot of shallow water ships from Jiaozhi, which could be used temporarily.

He is now frantically promoting maritime trade, encouraging the private sector to buy ships and build ships, and then frantically collecting taxes.

As long as there are more ships, there will be more natural taxes.

"How does Your Majesty collect taxes now?" Xia Yuanji was a little puzzled at this time: "According to the Municipal Ship Division, you can't collect much?" ”

First of all, the admirals of the Ming Dynasty's Municipal Ship Division are mainly eunuchs, which is a good head for Zhu Di, the Yongle Emperor, from his shipyard, let Zheng He and Wang Yan know that he is very important to eunuchs.

The term eunuch was also popular at this time, and the municipal ship departments all over the country took eunuchs as commanders, and made the original city ship promotion department a foil, with no real power.

After the eunuchs supervise the various ship divisions, they may be better at first, but after a long time, they will mess around, all kinds of corruption and bribery.

The functions of the Ming Dynasty's Municipal Ship Division were diversified, and there were four main functions before Hong Xi, one was to distinguish the authenticity of the goods, the second was to prohibit coastal residents from going to the sea, the third was to tax the goods of foreign private trade, and the fourth was to ensure the fair trade of goods.

Now the second article of the Hong Xi Dynasty has been changed, and it has become to encourage residents across the country to go to the sea, and is also responsible for the pre-sale of more than 2,000 government-built ships.

This will be only one shipyard in Fujian, and next year's large ship orders from the private sector have been scheduled until October next year.

Article 1: What does it mean to distinguish between authenticity and falsehood?

At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, due to the huge profits of the tributary trade, many merchants went to the Ming Dynasty under the guise of tribute envoys, and the vassal states also reaped profits from private maritime trade, so they frequently sent envoys to the Ming Dynasty without stopping it, and earned a lot of money from both official and private channels. In order to avoid the situation that vassal states intensively sent tribute envoys to the Ming Dynasty to cheat money and private merchants repeatedly pretended to be tribute envoys, Ming Taizu issued an edict to the Ministry of Rites in the sixteenth year of Hongwu to issue Kanhe documents to various vassal states who came to pay tribute, which is the origin of the "Kanhe" system.

To put it simply, because ancient China has always regarded itself as the superior state of the Celestial Empire, foreigners know that the Ming people are stupid and have a lot of money, and cats and dogs can pretend to be messengers, or send real envoys several times a year, as long as they come, they can cheat money.

Like at this time, Goryeo has to send envoys at least seven or eight times a year, anyway, they have to pay tribute to the Ming Dynasty war horses and other things, sometimes send dozens of tribute horses, the Ming court can return the gift worth tens of thousands of taels of silver, this is blood earning.

Outsiders all know that the Ming people are stupid and have a lot of money, and there are all kinds of fake messengers, just send something and say it is a tribute, and the Ming court can return a bunch of good gifts, and it is blood to earn.

Therefore, the first function of the Municipal Ship Division is to distinguish the authenticity and see clearly whether the messenger is real or fake.

But this trick is useless, Waifan sees that you want to distinguish the authenticity, so simply come to the truth, pay tribute seven or eight times a year, you have to give us back seven or eight batches of gifts, or blood to earn.

Zhu Gaoxu was talking about this, when a report came from outside, Liu Jun, the secretary of the Ministry of War, and Lu Zhen, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, came.

"Let them in." Zhu Gaoxu specially sent someone to call Lu Zhen and the others in.

Lu Zhen and the two walked out of the Fengtian Hall after the court, and were chased back to the Dongnuan Pavilion by the eunuchs.

After coming in, the two of them first met the emperor, and then they were also given to sit, and their hearts were refreshed, when Zhu Di was there, no one was qualified to sit.

When Emperor Jianwen was there, only Huang Zicheng and Qi Tai were qualified to sit.

"Lu Butang, we are talking about the matter of the Municipal Ship Department to identify the authenticity of Kanhe, and this article of Zhenjue will be changed, and there will be no need to issue Kanhe documents in the future."

When Lu Zhen heard this, he immediately said: "Your Majesty, if the Kanhe document book is not issued, there will be many fake messengers-——

"It doesn't matter if it's true or not." Zhu Gaoxu said: "You can do business when you come in the future." ”

He can't help the sea anymore, so it doesn't matter if the messenger is real or not, he can do business when he comes.

"But." Zhu Gaoxu said: "In the future, the imperial court can't lose money, how much the tribute envoys send to the imperial court, we must first calculate the value of the gifts they give, and then return the gift with five-three-—— two achievements are enough, our Ming civil war is not stopped, the people are poor, and there is no money to lose." Zhu Gaoxu said in a compassionate tone.

“。。” Lu Zhen had an expression of disbelief on his face, the emperor was so picky? What about the weather of my kingdom tomorrow?

Xia Yuanji is overjoyed, it should be so provincial.

Lu Zhen must be unhappy.

Because the Ministry of Rites is responsible for returning the gift, you can fill your pocket.

Suppose the Ministry of Rites reports that the gift is 10,000 taels of silver in return, and you give the messenger 1,000 taels less, and the messenger will not mind.

Hongwu and Yongle had officials from the Ministry of Rites do this, and the foreign envoy came to the door with a tribute ceremony, and the official of the Ministry of Rites got the list of tributes, called the messenger, and then said, you send this spice, we don't know it, how much can it be worth?

Of course, the envoy understood it, and it was clear that it was only worth ten taels of spices, so he said a thousand taels, and then he would also remind the officials of the Ministry of Rites that when you return the salute, we don't need too much? Both sides know Du Ming.

In this way, the official of the Ministry of Rites reported to the Ministry of Rites, saying that a foreign tribute gift was precious, worth tens of thousands of taels, and after the emperor knew, he would definitely give instructions to show the face of my tomorrow Dynasty and give me a heavy gift, and the Ministry of Rites looked at it.

The Ministry of Rites returned, preparing to return the gift as much as possible, and the actual messenger would take it less with interest, and then it all went to the pocket of the Ministry of Rites officials.

Now that the new emperor is so picky, he must first find out the value of the other party's gift, and then return the gift in two percent, the Ming Empire is like this, who will send a messenger to play with you in the future?