Philip and Firut returned to the pavilion and sold the last of the tea and silk they were destined to bring back to Europe, and the European merchants they were familiar with borrowed a lot of foreign debts, so that they could gather the materials to pay tribute to the Ming Dynasty, and obtained the qualification to become a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty, allowing them to meet the emperor in person.

Lao Zhu met them at the court meeting, and asked Honglu Temple to entertain him, and Philip took the opportunity to submit a request to accompany the Ming fleet to Fengmingzhou, and Lao Zhu immediately agreed, and everything was logical.

This made the two overjoyed, and kept kowtowing and thanking them, and Lao Zhu couldn't help but laugh and waved them away. In fact, according to Zhu Su's original intention, he originally wanted people to pretend to be the Franc Machine Mission again, so that they could squeeze their oil and water again. Even, Zhu Su even found those people who pretended to be the envoys of the Buddha Machine, and the Ming Dynasty inherited the rule of the Yuan Court, and there were already many people in the territory, these people have lived in China for a long time since their fathers and ancestors, and their daily life is actually no different from the Chinese people. It's just that the face still has the style of a European, and it is more than enough to pretend to be a European mission.

It was Liu Bowen who felt that it was too much and dissuaded Zhu Su, who was a little playful. After all, this country has been at war with Britain for a long time, and the two sides know each other very well, so they may have seen some clues, and there is no need to make such extraneous branches.

Moreover, the country of the Franc machine did not actually have much communication with the East. At this time, the Franc machine that the Ming Dynasty thought was more referring to the later Spain, not France...... It would be unpleasant to make such a mission to compete with these Britons, if these Britons thought of this flaw and doubted the previous design.

In fact, the British mission at this time was also at the end of the mountain. Except for two ships that have not yet been sold, almost all the things that can be sold for money have been sold by them. Even the Western-style dress worn by the two nobles was pawned to the pawnshop in Yingtian City in order to raise supplies for going to sea.

This is still the old shopkeeper of the pawnshop who sees the rarity of the style of this clothes, so he barely let them make three or four dollars...... Otherwise, this dress, which was carefully sewn by the court tailors and worth a thousand taels of silver in the West, would not have been wanted by anyone if it was thrown into the garbage.

"Tie Xuan has already put the chart drawing into the library of the main hall, and Song Shi is in charge of it himself. Longjiang Shipyard has also restructured the treasure ship, and now, the treasure ship has a larger cargo capacity and a deeper draft...... "In the palace, Zhu Su and Lao Zhu and Zhu Biao sat in the pavilion of the imperial garden, and Zhu Su played the preparations for the next sea.

"And the fleet brought sufficient firearms and medicines this time, and planned to explore deeper into Fengmingzhou. Within a year, bring the divine seed back to Daming. ”

"Hmm." Lao Zhu nodded, "I also told Zhang He and Tie Xuan that although we are in a hurry to get the god seed, the safety of the soldiers of Fengmingzhou must also be put forward." ”

"We are operating Fengmingzhou as a place of everything, but we are not going to directly take the god seed. If the artisan households and sinners who moved in the past want to take root there, they must also practice good governance and evangelization in Fengmingzhou. ”

"This time, we have tricked a lot of literati for them in the past to educate barbarians and govern the people, don't let down our heart. Many of these people have ill intentions, and when they arrive in Fengmingzhou, there may be people who have thoughts that should not have been like Xu Fu in the past. Go back and let them bring our secret letter to Mao Xiang, and be sure to watch those guys closely. ”

"Father, the so-called Xiucai rebellion has not been successful for three years. Erchen felt that when those civil officials arrived in Fengmingzhou, they were afraid that they would not be able to afford to make any trouble. Zhu Biao said. It's the civil officials in the court...... Because many officials were dismissed and assigned this time, some people in the DPRK and China were quite worried. It's time to think about how to stabilize the situation. ”

The word "again" in Zhu Biao's words is actually quite helpless. Lao Zhu's eyes are really too hard to rub the sand, starting from the Hu Weiyong case and the empty seal case, this is already the fourth large-scale deposition and exile of court officials. Although there is no such cruel peeling of daylilies as the previous ones, the arrest of all the officials who have been involved in businessmen and opened up for businessmen in the DPRK and China is enough to cause huge waves in any other dynasty.

That is, in the Hongwu Dynasty, officials actually had some habits......

But Rao is like this, and now everyone in the court is still inevitably in danger. In fact, not all of the officials arrested this time are corrupt officials who accept heavy bribes from businessmen, and there are lessons from previous major cases, and officials must first weigh whether they have enough courage before embezzling. What's more, in fact, they were entrusted by the elders of the family, or to repay their former benefactors...... After all, it is inevitable that the official's family will have a business background, and the emperor is originally inclined to maritime, and it is not all for the purpose of abusing power for personal gain.

"Hmph, a group of corpse vegetarians, if they don't have a weak heart, what good people are worried about?" Lao Zhu pulled down his face after hearing this. Because of his early experience, in fact, Lao Zhu did not look down on these sanctimonious civil officials, which is very different from Zhu Biao, who relied on civil officials. "Accept dividends from businessmen, and your family is rich in business, so don't come to be my Ming official!"

"Old Five, we are going to make it clear that those who have been in business for three generations in the family since then, or who have good relations with businessmen on weekdays, are strictly forbidden to enter the imperial examination, what do you think?"

"Father? This...... Never. Zhu Biao's face changed. This matter is extremely difficult to implement, even if it is to be implemented, the cost will inevitably be very heavy, and the ministers think it is impossible. ”

"It's just a name." Lao Zhu waved his hand and said. "We also know that this matter is not easy to investigate in detail, but there must be such an order, so that they can not blatantly use the power given to them by the court to do business, and add a sense of awe and jealousy to them."

"This ......," Zhu Biao pondered for a while, "in this way, it is feasible." Just by this order, I am afraid that the turmoil between the DPRK and China will be even worse. ”

"We know, that's why we asked Lao Wu's opinion." Old Zhu Dao.

Zhu Su pondered for a while, and said tentatively: "Perhaps, you can add money to the court officials?" ”

"Dad, with all due respect, the amount that our Ming Dynasty gave to the officials is really too low. It is only enough for them to eat, wear, sit and lie down for a family of four or five on weekdays, and if they support the elderly, or add Ding to import, it will not be enough. ”

"It is important to know that it is unrealistic to expect all officials to be dedicated to public service. Most of the low-level officials have mixed up their duties, in fact, they just want to eat the iron rice bowl of the imperial court, so that they can glorify their ancestors and not starve to death on the streets. ”

"If you don't have enough money to make a living, then you naturally have to find a way to ask for donations, and even sell power for personal gain, which is not uncommon...... In my opinion, if we want to crack down on corruption and collusion between officials and businessmen, we must first solve the problem of the survival of officials. Otherwise, most of the officials will not even have enough to eat, and they will have to be greedy, and the small will become greedy, and one person will become greedy...... At that time, corruption will become a trend and become a fashion, and then it will be the real confidant of my Ming Dynasty. ”

(End of chapter)