After the ceremonial priest saluted, he went through a long ceremony such as sounding the whip to tell the time and bowing in praise before he arrived at the link of long live the mountain call.

At this time, there is a royal history who is eager to try.

However, Zhu Di, who was expressionless, spoke straight and broke their plan.

"Today, you need to go to the eastern suburbs to worship at the altar, and things are simple."

"Just two things."

"First, I plan to appoint Li Jinglong, the Duke of Cao Guo, as the chief envoy to go to Japan to present the credentials on behalf of the Ming Dynasty, do you have any objections?"

The ministers looked at each other, not knowing what the emperor wanted.

It's similar to Natsuharaji's reaction when he heard this question.

Only a few ministers who knew some of the old things of the Hongwu Dynasty pondered for a moment, and then felt that they had vaguely guessed the deep meaning of the emperor's move.

I'm afraid I want to borrow a knife to kill someone?

Four years ago, the Japanese envoy Zua and Hakata maritime merchant Fei Fu came to the Ming Dynasty to show their sincerity and returned a number of people who had been captured by the Japanese invaders.

Three years earlier, the young Emperor Jianwen had conferred the Great Unification Calendar and sent the Zen monk Yi Tianlun and the monk Ichian to return to Japan along with the Japanese envoys, and the Muromachi shogun, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, personally greeted him at the port of Hyogo (present-day Kobe) and held a solemn ceremony at Kitayama Kinkakuji Temple in Kyoto, recognizing Japan as a subject state of the Ming Dynasty.

When Japan was a minister, it promised that if the Ming Dynasty could always ensure the smooth flow of sea routes, then Japan was willing to pay tribute every year, just in exchange for the treatment of "exploration and trade".

The so-called so-called exploration is a wooden trade certificate issued by the Ming Dynasty officially, with words and signatures written on it, divided into two halves in the center, China and Japan each hold half, according to the number of each time the Japanese side of the voyage to the two sides of the match, whether it matches or not as the standard for verifying the body.

If the exploration trade can be reached, then the benefits to Japan will be quite huge, for example, if you buy raw silk worth 250 wen in Ningbo, you can sell it for 5,000 wen when you go to Japan, and the profit will be 20 times; For exports, for example, copper that was loaded to the sea from Kyushu and Shikoku Island, a lump of copper with a purchase price of 10 yuan, the Ming Dynasty bought it for 40 to 50 yuan, and the profit was four to five times.

This is also the reason why Japan's attitude towards the Ming Dynasty has taken a 180-degree turn after the end of the separation between the North and the South.

Of course, although Emperor Jianwen was too young, too simple, his long-term Confucian education also gave him an advantage that was not an advantage, that is, he could not afford to look down on barbarians, so although Japan came several times to send envoys, it never got the permission of the Ming Dynasty to explore trade.

And now, seeing that the deadline for Japan's commitment to annual tribute is approaching, Japan still has no movement, and the Ming Dynasty changed the emperor but did not come to the court, so the Ming Dynasty used this as two excuses to reprimand Japan in the national letter.

But no one wanted to take on this errand, ministers.

The difficulty of this errand is that it has to reprimand Japan condescendingly on behalf of the Ming Dynasty, and at the same time, it is not necessary to be caught by the angry little day or directly cut off his head.

The failure of the Hongwu Dynasty's diplomacy with Japan has proved that the Japanese are still quite temperamental sometimes.

In the second year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang sent Yang Zai to Japan with an edict to inform the news of *****'s accession to the throne, and at the same time condemned the Japanese for harassing our southeast coast, and ordered the Japanese side to strictly ban it and come early to call the ministers and pay tribute, otherwise they would go out to crusade against Yunyun, and his tone was quite tough.

Yang Zai and his entourage followed the traditional route to Japan, departed from Ningbo and landed in Kyushu, Japan, and the edict that was supposed to be sent to the imperial court of the Emperor in Kyoto fell into the hands of Prince Huailiang, the general of Sesaishi, the son of Emperor Go-Daigo.

Zhu Yuanzhang's threatening edict aroused the common hatred of the Japanese, thinking that it was another prelude to the 'attack of the Yuan Kou', and Prince Huailiang, who had been in charge of Kyushu for ten years and was in power, scoffed at Zhu Yuanzhang's edict, imprisoned Yang Zai, Wu Wenhua and other envoys, and beheaded five attachés.

Now, Li Jinglong has successfully taken over this hot potato.

It also means that the princes present here don't have to worry about being randomly selected by the emperor as a messenger and accidentally giving away their heads!

As a result, under the silence of many ministers, the matter of sending a delegation to Japan with Li Jinglong, the Duke of Cao Guogong, as the main envoy, was passed.

"In the second case, Xia Yuanji, the head of the household department, proposed that the 100 civil and military officials of the Beijing Division be invited to take the lead in the world and subscribe to the first batch of five-year 'Daming Treasury Bonds' with an interest rate of 8 percent, which will be directly deducted from the next month's salary."

As soon as these words came out, hundreds of officials were in an uproar!

"This"

"Too much, right? Why didn't he pay for it himself? ”

"yes, doesn't this show the pit people?"

The sale of the first batch of five-year Ming treasury bonds of the imperial court was only issued in Beijing, and if calculated according to the current price of silver, the value was as high as more than 160,000 taels of silver, and each of them had a face value of 100 Wen Hongwu Tongbao (minted by the Baoyuan Bureau of the Ministry of Industry, Jianwen Tongbao was minted for a short time and a small number of circulating bonds, and Zhu Di did not recognize Jianwen Tongbao, and Yongle Tongbao has not yet been published), which could be exchanged for 140 Wen Yongle Tongbao in the next five years.

Now the Ming government bonds that are planned to be sent to the hands of the hundreds of civil and military officials in the capital account for about four-fifths of them, and half of them are planned to be forcibly purchased with the hundred officials' money next month.

Forced to buy and sell belongs to yes.

And this is only the first five-year period.

This is followed by four-year, three-year, two-year, or even one-year periods.

Who knows if it's going to come every other day? This five-year pinching nose recognized, what about the next four-year one?

If it continues like this, will the Beijing officials of the Ming Dynasty still be alive?

You must know that if the Daming treasury bonds want to achieve the effect of recovering the bubble caused by the Daming treasure banknotes, then it is necessary to return one-tenth of the Ming treasure banknotes in the national market in the first stage.

Considering the total amount of Daming treasure banknotes issued in the past, if the current treasure banknotes can be exchanged for copper coins, that is, the face value of 1,000 yuan of treasure banknotes, can actually be exchanged for 80 copper coins to calculate the corresponding current silver price, then the total amount of Daming treasure banknotes in the country still exceeds tens of millions of taels of silver.

What I want to say here is that it is only a corresponding calculation, which does not mean that there is really so much silver in the Ming Dynasty, nor does it mean that all these treasure banknotes are in a state of flow.

If we only consider the Daming treasure banknotes circulating in the market, then this number will undoubtedly be greatly reduced.

Therefore, even if Xia Yuanji sold the first batch of Daming treasury bonds, it is still a drop in the bucket compared with the huge overall stock of Daming treasure banknotes.

Deducting officials to subscribe, is there a fart?

It is precisely because these officials can see it clearly, so the vast majority of officials unanimously believe that in five years, the Daming treasury bonds in their hands can only recover their costs at most, and they will not make profits, and they can even be said to be losing money!

Moreover, according to the deduction of money, in fact, the higher the rank, the greater the loss.

If the interest rate is 50 percent, do you think the Guilds in the court will rush to "pay for work"?

To put it bluntly, the money was not given.

"This damn old fox is really going to take advantage of the fire."

Above the court, many ministers scolded in their hearts, and their faces were extremely ugly.

Regarding Xia Yuanji's behavior, everyone was naturally extremely angry.

Moreover, many officials are aware that this is a good opportunity for the wall to fall and everyone to push it.

The position of the household department is so covetous, you don't see Liu Guan, the right attendant of the household department, is it a little unbearable at this time?

But these people don't have any black materials about Xia Yuanji on hand, even if they want to pull the court struggle into a situation of personal attack, they can't find suitable materials.

Therefore, since there is no way to judge people on facts, then we can only judge things on facts.

After communicating with each other with eye contact or gestures to the wat board.

As is customary, it was time for a group of pawns belonging to different factions to appear.

These low-level officials who serve their mentors and superiors stand out for one who dares to spray and is not afraid of punishment.

"Your Majesty! I beg you to refuse Xia Shangshu's request! ”

A tall and thin imperial historian came out and admonished Zhu Di: "This kind of thing must not be agreed, if you do what Xia Shangshu said, the imperial court will not make a fortune, won't you let me wait for my ministers to go down to the cold window for decades, but in the future, for the food, clothing, housing and transportation of the whole family, I will borrow money from lowly businessmen every month to live?" In this way, where is the face of the court? The Confucian students in the world know about it, how will the academy teach its protégés and disciples in the future? Could it be that it is better to be an official than inappropriate? Then who wants to come out and do things for the country? And how can officials be respected by the world? I hope Your Majesty will think twice! ”

After hearing this, Zhu Di's brows furrowed, his eyes were deep, and he seemed to be in deep thought.

And the eldest prince Zhu Gaochi, who was sitting in the first seat under him, had a dumbfounded expression, as if what was happening now had nothing to do with him.

The second prince Zhu Gaoxu and Cao Guogong Li Jinglong, who should exist below, were not there, and the hundred officials didn't have the heart to care about it this time, but they just thought that Cao Guogong was sent to Japan by the emperor as an envoy, and he must have been preparing for the envoy.

As for the side hall on the other side of the hall, the two real people of the Taoist sect who were meditating and waiting were not boring.

They studied the beautifully made and brightly colored "fertilizer elixir" in their hands, and they all looked confident.

"ZHANG Tian. Da Zhenren, I don't know something. ”

The third prince, Zhu Gaosui, did not wear armor today, but wore a bullfighting suit, and still had a golden gourd hammer hanging from his waist.

Zhang Tianshi is a common name, and Zhu Gaosui just felt that it was inappropriate, so he changed his name.

After all, Zhang Yuchu was the thirteenth year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty, and Zhu Yuanzhang was enshrined as "Zhengyi Heir Teaching Taoism and Wuwei Interpretation of Ancestor Guangfan Dazhenren", and he led the world's Taoist affairs.

Although during the Jianwen Dynasty, Emperor Jianwen, who was controlled by Confucianism, did not even say "Da Zhenren", and even refused to call "Heavenly Master".

This big real person is really called, Zhang Yuchu smiled.

"Your Royal Highness the Third Prince, please speak."

Under Zhu Gaosui's hooked nose, his thin lips were pursed tightly, and even his nasolabial folds were elongated.

"Now that the two of you know the inside story, it should be okay to say it now. Last night, I heard that my father seemed to have used some kind of strategy to deceive hundreds of officials, but the current thing is a hammer in the east and a mallet in the west, and what Cao Guogong sent to Japan, and what Xia Shangshu sold Ming treasury bonds. ”

"But the problem is." Zhu Gaosui couldn't help but ask his soul, "Isn't the business to be done today when I go to the Great Shrine to demonstrate the 'Fertilizer Elixir'?" What does this mess have to do with the demonstration of the 'fertilizer elixir'? ”

Yuan Hui wore a clean robe today, with the kind image of a white-bearded grandfather, he twisted his beard, looked at the two of them with a smile, and looked at the two of them with a smile.

Zhang Yuchu also opened his mouth to answer, but before exiting, he was still cautious and asked: "The minister is presumptuous, may I ask His Royal Highness the Third Prince, how much do you know about the causes and consequences of this matter?" ”

Zhu Gaosui scratched his head.

What he knows is nothing more than the three twists and turns of the second brother, it is said that Japan does have mountains of gold and silver, so he speculates that Li Jinglong, the Duke of Cao Guo, should be inseparable from this matter when he sent an envoy to Japan.

As for the matter of the Ming national debt, he had heard his father mention it slightly, but he was basically confused, he couldn't understand this thing if you asked him to sit there and listen to Jiang Xinghuo's lecture, let alone other people's relays.

Moreover, Zhu Di, whose economic level was not as good as Emperor Gao of the Ming Dynasty, relayed the economic principles hoho, and it is no wonder that Zhu Gaosui became more and more confused the more he listened.

In the end, Zhu Gaosui knew a lot about the 'fertilizer elixir', because he handled many things single-handedly.

But he only knew that the 'chemical fertilizer elixir' could increase the yield per mu of crops, why there was such a thing, what was the principle of this thing, and how to use it in the end, Zhu Gaosui didn't know anything.

Therefore, it is difficult for Zhu Gaosui to string these three things together.

Since there is no necessary puzzle in hand, of course it is impossible to spell out the whole picture of the matter, and it is impossible to see clearly the series of plans that Dao Yan instructed Zhu Di to make.

These three things seem to be scattered and unrelated, but together with the previous event, they constitute a complete cause-disagreement-turn-purpose.

When Zhang Yuchu arranged these four things and clearly displayed them in front of the third prince Zhu Gaosui, he suddenly realized.

"Master Dao Yan is indeed a saint in the world! In this way, not only have the four things been done, but the ultimate goal has also been achieved, but all the officials have been led away in the dark! ”

"Nope."

Zhang Yuchu and Yuan Hui denied it at the same time, which couldn't help but surprise Zhu Gaosui for a while.

Yuan Hui motioned to Zhang Yuchu to say first.

Zhang Yuchu said frankly: "Master Dao Yan is just taking advantage of the situation, and the real potential is still here in Jiang Xianren." ”

Return to the main hall.

Xia Yuanji, who was as popular as the stars holding the moon in the past, stood alone in place at this time, bearing the overwhelming accusations of his colleagues.

Originally, some of them didn't want or dared to accuse Xia Yuanji.

But all of them have involuntarily formed some kind of 'politically correct' behavior, and since everyone has carried out collective acts, then maybe no one will remember what you said, but they will definitely remember that you didn't say anything.

"Xia Shangshu, there is no reason to do things like this, this is simply joking with the credibility of Daming."

It was the right attendant of the Ministry of Rites who was born in the Jiangnan gentry who spoke, and his face was full of indignation: "Your Majesty still trusts you and hands over the household department of the Ming Dynasty to you to take care of, is this the suggestion that the minister of state of Lao Cheng Zhiguo should make?" ”

The squire of the criminal department was also indignant: "The upright ministers in the Manchu Dynasty all rely on the court to survive, isn't this the people who are waiting to be fed by the monarch's father?" How can anyone propose to be a monarch and not give food to his children? ”

The rest of the officials chimed in: "Extremely! Extremely! ”

"You must know that the most important thing for my generation of scholars is a body of character, how can they do such a humiliating thing in order to raise money? Xia Shangshu, in vain, I have always regarded you as a model, but I never expected that you would be such a person! ”

Listening to the accusations of the people around him,

Xia Yuanji, who understood what the emperor meant, felt his ears buzzing, and gradually became a little impatient.

Zhou Yu beat Huang Gai, one is willing to fight and the other is willing to suffer.

But the process of being beaten seems to be very painful!

The colleague who usually looked extremely respectful to him seemed to be a different person at this time, and his words stabbed Xia Yuanji in the chest like a knife.

In fact, Xia Yuanji also knows that the political struggle is like this, and once someone seizes the opportunity, there will be countless people staring at his throne.

But even if Xia Yuanji was ready, at this time, his abdomen was still like a big hand stretched out, dragging that heart, and it kept falling.

The world is cold, nothing more than this.

At this moment, the official Shangshu Jianyi suddenly slapped the ivory wat board in his hand twice.

"Princes, Xia Shangshu is doing things for the court, not for him personally!"

"After all, it's a book, how can it be attacked in such a cluster?"

The heavenly official spoke, and the hall was temporarily quiet for a moment.

Tribulation sees the truth, hearing this, Xia Yuanji forcibly suppressed the moving emotions surging in his heart, and barely squeezed out a smile at Jian Yi beside him.

This kind of silence is only for a moment.

The tide is together, relying on their strength, even if it is the honor of Shangshu, it is difficult to contain.

Moreover, this trend is not all directed at Xia Yuanji, a large part of them are actually gentry from Jiangnan, and they are a kind of verbal catharsis for the emperor's implementation of 'apportionment into mu' in Jiangnan some time ago, which greatly damaged their interests, and a kind of accusation and scolding Huai.

After the silence, public opinion rose like the wind to fuel the fire.

I don't know who shouted.

"There is a public opinion about right and wrong, is it because of the music of Shang Shu?"

After shouting this sentence, it was immediately boiling.

"Enough! Shut up! ”

There was a majestic and cold angry shout from the dragon chair, and everyone was suddenly silent, and they didn't dare to say a word anymore.

Xia Yuanji raised his head and followed his line of sight to look in the direction of the dragon chair.

I saw Zhu Di, who was wearing the crown of the Son of Heaven, sitting on the dragon chair, staring coldly and sharply at the officials kneeling in a row. The face that was usually resolute and calm looked particularly hideous and terrifying at the moment.

The official who was shouting as if he was about to tear down the hall just now was frightened by the emperor, and immediately lowered his head, not daring to say a word again, as if he was afraid that a little hesitation would anger the murderous monarch for a moment.

But Zhu Di just said calmly.

"Aren't you all accusing Xia Shangshu?"

"Then has any of you ever thought about why Xia Shangshu did this?"

The ministers looked at each other.

The issuance of 'Daming Treasury Bonds' is, of course, because the household department has no money and wants to make money.

Zhu Di stood up from the dragon chair, he came to the front of the platform, looked down at the civil and military officials, and said loudly.

"Because there are immortals who have dreams, telling me that Daming will gradually become cold in the next few hundred years!"

"If we want to fight against future disasters and leave a Ming dynasty for our future generations, our generation must find a solution."

"The solution is an immortal recipe for refining the elixir, and the immortal who gave me the dream has been given to Zhang Tianshi of Longhu Mountain."

"According to the immortal formula, Zhang and Yuan have preliminarily refined an elixir called 'chemical fertilizer'."

"But this is far from enough, Daming needs more fertilizer elixir."

"It takes a lot of money to refine the elixir!"

Zhu Di pointed to Xia Yuanji, who was alone in the crowd, and said: "I asked Xia Shangshu about the plan, and Xia Shangshu told me that there is no money in the household department. ”

"Xia Shangshu has been running around for many days, and finally under the guidance of the masters, he has tried his best to come up with an emergency solution for the 'Daming Treasury Bonds', understand?!"

(End of chapter)